#maybe this was just an exercise in making myself say good things about the sequels

[salmonskinrolltf]

Soulmates 2

[Here's a sequel of sorts to my previous story Soulmates (you don't need to have read it to understand this story). With thanks to @guytransformedforever, @beardobession, @tf-vigilante, @maletransformationlover, @clevertreephilosopher, @scorpionofredsand, and @maletffanatic for providing the photos used as inspiration.]

Hello, my name is Tyler. This is me:

And this is my roommate, Dylan:

Now look, I don’t have a problem with gay people. My cousin is a lesbian. And Dylan is a great roommate. Stays out of my way when we’re not gymming together, but is always down to hang when I need someone to talk to. I just wish he would be less in my face with all his gay shit. Rainbow flags everywhere, blasting Ariana Grande at all hours, constantly bringing new Grindr hookups back to the apartment but giving me side-eye when I ogle women. It’s just… too much for me.

Here’s the thing. I might actually be able to change that. I have this friend Evan, who I’ve wingmanned for on a few occasions over the past year. One night, when we were getting drunk together, he shared his secret with me. He has a magic gift. He clasped my hand and said “tomorrow, you will wake up and have this magic too.” And sure enough, the next day I could feel a tingle coursing through my veins, and I automatically had the knowledge of how to channel it.

Now I have the ability to change somebody’s future. I can’t fiddle with anything that’s innate or has already happened to them. Like, I can’t just make Dylan straight. But I can shape his future decisions or actions, and my magic will make alterations to speed the process along. Like if I made him decide to work out more, he would basically become a muscle beast within the week. Not that I’d do that. I still gotta be the alpha here. I just want to make him a little more… palatable. Someone cool to kick back with all the time, even if he sucks dick. Let’s see... I think I know what will work.

TOMORROW, DYLAN WILL BECOME OBSESSED WITH SPORTS

———————————

Hello, my name is Dylan:

Sports are my LIFE. I never cared about them much growing up, but about a month ago I felt the urge to join my local queer volleyball team and never looked back. It became my everything. It’s been great exercise, but on top of playing volleyball and getting totally jacked off of it, I’ve loved the sense of camaraderie. I love my team. So much so that I even pierced my nipples on a dare when we lost the semifinals. My teammate River also recommended I stop dyeing my hair, and I think the look is really working for me. For some reason, even though it’s only been a month, my hair has grown out significantly since then. Was the red dye stunting its growth or something? Anyway. I also feel like my roommate Tyler and I have really bonded. We’ve been watching baseball games together and I think he appreciates how into it I am. He says he’s excited to bro out while watching football together in the fall.

I love Tyler, but here’s the thing. Maybe I love him too much. I’ve always had this huge crush on him, and no matter how many random Grindr hookups I try to distract myself with, I just can’t stop hoping that one day he’ll give up women for good and decide he loves me. Especially now that we’re spending all this time together, bumping chests when our team wins and shit.

I know us getting together is never going to happen, but I have this… temptation. I was born with a gift. Or maybe I wasn’t. Something my twink friend Paul told me made me think maybe he had something to do with it. Anyway, I have the ability to reshape someone’s past. I change just one thing about their past, and everything about their present just ripples forward to reflect that change. It’s a delicate art. Changing something big can have huge effects that are totally unpredictable. It’s a major temptation to make Tyler gay, but who knows how he’d turn out. Plus, I think that’s just too invasive.

But… Maybe I could change something small about him. Something that would make him less my type, and allow me to move on and focus on finding a boyfriend who would actually be into me. I’m into nice guys. I really love how kind and caring he is. And come on, he’s a FIREFIGHTER. So maybe I can try…

TYLER GREW UP SELFISH AND SPOILED

———————————

What’s up, I’m Tyler.

You dig the jacket? Yeah, I’m still a firefighter, I’m just off duty. But babes dig whatever look I rock, you know what I mean? I get what I want, and what I want is a lot of one night stands. I know how to get ‘em, too. I’m so glad I made the decision to grow this beard out a year ago, it’s opened so many doors for me. And opened a lot of legs.

I’m getting what I want from Dylan, too. Finally, I have a roommate who’s willing to grab brews and watch the game with me. But I think I fucked up when I changed him. Queer volleyball isn’t exactly “sports,” at least not in my book. I thought he’d come out like a linebacker or something! I mean, nipple rings were never part of the plan. The gay guys seem to really go for them, too, so he’s got an even steadier stream of Grindr hookups coming in and out of the place.

On top of that, I’m a little sick of his shit. He’s always giving me lip about stupid stuff like leaving my dishes in the sink or dropping my unwashed uniform on the bathroom floor. He says it’s unsanitary. Like his parade of twinks aren’t dying to sniff that shit anyway. He just doesn’t get it. I think his volleyball teammates are a bad influence too. They’re all so obsessed with aesthetic and anti-hetero rhetoric. I still can’t make him straight, but I can definitely make him less… annoying.

TOMORROW, DYLAN WILL START HANGING OUT WITH MORE STRAIGHT PEOPLE WHO WILL HELP HIM STOP WORRYING ABOUT STUPID SHIT AND BE LESS PRISSY, WELL-GROOMED, AND UPTIGHT

———————————

Yo, I’m Dylan.

Yeah, I cut my hair shorter than the last time you saw me. The upkeep was just getting to be too much, y’know? A couple weeks ago, about the time I dumped that lame-ass volleyball team I was on, I just got bored with shaving every day, too. I invested in a trimmer and now I rock the stubble look, and it’s working for me. I’ve gained a bit of weight since then, and it’s all for the better because I joined my local football league. Having a few extra beers with my new buds afterward just adds to my potential as a linebacker, anyway.

I thought hanging out with more straight people would make me get used to their vibe and kinda inoculate me against Tyler, but I’m still totally obsessed with him. He’s more of a bad boy now, but I’m finding that less unappealing than I used to. Plus, he’s still parading around in his uniform all the time. I can’t help it! I’ve jerked off more times that I can count to his Mr. June photos in the local firefighter calendar.

Whenever I see his mom, she’s constantly going on about how, out of all his Tonka toys growing up, the fire truck was always his favorite. She thinks that’s why he grew up to be a firefighter. Maybe I can change that core memory into something a little more… disreputable. That would definitely make him not my type anymore. I hope.

TYLER’S FAVORITE TOY GROWING UP WAS A TONKA MOTORCYCLE

———————————

Fuckin’ A, man, I’m Tyler.

God, I love my hog. She’s a beaut, ain’t she? My parents wanted me to grow up to be a doctor or a lawyer or a firefighter or some shit, but all I ever wanted to do was ride my hog. Chicks want to ride my hog too, and I let them. As long as they don’t go near my bike! Hahaha, get it? Fuck, I love life. Let me take another drag on this stogie real quick.

Where was I? Oh yeah, my roommate, Dylan. I wish I didn’t have to room with anyone, but my boss at the garage keeps refusing to promote me. I should knock him around one of these days, see if that changes his mind. Anyway, sure, Dylan isn’t so much of a priss anymore. He doesn’t give me shit if I leave my grease-stained clothes on the couch or light up when we’re watching a football game.

But I wanted him to be straight-acting, you know? I tried to train him up as my wingman but he wore a super gay shirt with all these see-through holes to the party, and all the chicks kept their eyes on him the whole time! Fucker. Why can’t he be more like his brother? I’ve seen pictures. That dude is a full on redneck slob, got a Confederate tattoo and everything. I know they had the same backwater-ass trailer trash upbringing, why can’t he be rougher around the edges? You know what… maybe he can!

TOMORROW, DYLAN WILL REALIZE HE WANTS TO EMBRACE HIS WHITE TRASH UPBRINGING

———————————

Hey y’all, I’m Dylan.

Hoo-ee, life has been good lately. I dunno why I resisted my good ol’ boy roots for so long. This goatee really makes me look rugged, dunnit? Also the chest hair. So grabbable. I decided to stop shaving my body, and poof! There it went. A full rug, within like two days I reckon. Like a sign from God. This is how I was always meant to be.

I know I was trying to push away my crush on Tyler by making him not my type, but what’s the fuckin’ point? I need someone who can handle me, and this hot as fuck biker dude I’ve created might be the only one who can handle me at this point. I ride ‘em rough and bareback, just like the horses back home, and weak city dudes just can’t handle it.

Will he be the same if he’s not straight? Maybe not. But as long as he can take my eight inches, I’ll keep him around. I vaguely remember having some sort of compunction about changing him so drastically, but I’m too horny to remember what it was.

Fuck it.

TYLER WAS BORN GAY

———————————

Uh… hi. I’m Tyler. Who are you again?

Sorry, I’m pretty forgetful. Daddy Dylan says I don’t gotta remember shit though, as long as I let him ride me as rough and as long as he likes. He’ll do all the rest for me. He tells me where to go, what to do, who to do. There are so many nice, hot guys who are willing to pay our rent if I turn a few tricks. I love it.

I’ve been like this as long as I can remember. My mom and dad kicked me out when I was 18, in my senior year of high school. I was caught sucking my English teacher’s dick behind the locker rooms. I never went to college after that, but it’s not like I was getting good grades anyway. Sucking Mr. Brentmon’s cock wasn’t for my health, you know. He had a nice juicy one, too. I still dream about it sometimes.

What was I saying? Oh yeah, I took up with this biker gang for a while after getting kicked out. I’ve always had a thing for bikers. But once they got through using my ass, they got bored. It was hard for a while, but now things are oh, so easy. I get all the dick I could ever want. I have a roof over my head, and no job to worry about. All I do is go to the gym and eat and fuck and I never have to think. Dylan said he might take me out muddin’ sometime too. I don’t know what that is, but anything Dylan does is fun. Fuck, I love the way his goatee tickles my skin when he kisses me, so rough, so manly. Way manlier than I’ve ever been. It’s so fucking hot. I love how he takes care of me.

I really have no complaints. I wouldn’t change anything about my life, even if I could remember how…

#roommates #straight to gay #masculinization #biker #redneck #jock #IQ drain

[softlyspector]

Hello! Forgive me but this is gonna be long bc I have so much love to express.

I've been following you for YEARS and I have always felt too shy to message you even anonymously bc I just thought "there is no way I can express to this person how their writing makes me feel" but Blush made me feel so violently happy and content I literally had to go and take a walk in the sunlight while listening to the 2005 pride & prejudice soundtrack to properly digest how much i adored it. And so I've decided that I simply HAVE TO tell you how much I love your writing.

I think I first came across your blog when you had posted somewhere between like.. maybe 3-5 fics? And I've always been someone who reads for comfort bc there wasn't always a lot of comfort in my life. Reading was an escape. And as soon as I started reading what you wrote I just thought to myself "wow. This person gets it. Like they UNDERSTAND. I can't pinpoint what they understand but they UNDERSTAND" and I can safely say that I have read everything on this blog at least five times. I told myself that this message can't get outrageously long so I am just going to highlight a few favourites but just know that everything you write makes me go "how does she DO that? How does she have such a way with words???"

Okay so Hard Landings. Listen to me. Listen. Listen listen listen. For YEARS my friends have been trying to get me into star wars and I could just never do it. And then I read Hard Landings and fell in love and immediately had to watch the sequel trilogy. When i tell you that every word of that fic is poetry to me. When I tell you that I think about it constantly. To me, Poe Dameron is now just... yours. Like sorry to Mr. Oscar Isaac but Poe belongs to YOU.

Tales Untold. Every time a new chapter was posted I had to do a breathing exercise. I got so excited. Whenever I reread it I fall in love all over again. It's like watching a movie to me, every description is so vivid and beautiful. Hollywood could never.

Significant? Yeah this is a Hard Landings repeat bc my friends had also been trying to get me to watch The Mandalorian and I wasn't interested until you started writing Din. And then I fell in love. THE POWER YOU HAVE. Me, giggling and twirling my hair bc of your Significant-verse? It's more likely than you think.

AND THEN THERE'S HONEYED. Even when I reread, I have to put my phone down bc some parts just make me too emotional EVERY. SINGLE. TIME!! You are such an artist. I have felt understood by this fic in a way that I don't think I've ever been understood before. Feels like you shook my soul until coins fell out of its pockets with this one. In a good way. In a great way. In the BEST way.

I want to shower you with more praise but this feels like it is already obnoxiously long enough. Should I refer to myself as "obnoxious loving ranter" or something every time? Was this too much? Idk I was just filled with so much affection and gratitude it needed to be expressed. Have a great day. Enjoy your favourite beverage. Know that I am mentally hugging you if you would like that sort of thing. You're great.

Hi my dear there is absolutely nothing to apologize for 💕 I'm so so so flattered that you've been here, following along for such a long time. You've really been here through it all.

I'm so glad you liked Blush so much. I can't believe it was the one to draw you out and into my ask box! Honeyed is very special to me, so it means a lot. My words being the thing that made you feel like there was someone who got it? Who understood? I don't have the words to describe what that really means to me, especially because half the time I don't know what I'm going on about until it's on paper, living here with you all on this silly little blog. Sometimes I get replies and think, oh, this person gets it. I said something and they heard me, even when I didn't really know what I was trying to say.

Ahem, on to your looks into my fics. No, I'm not crying don't worry about it.

Hard Landings....my only Poe fic. I can't believe I'm what pulled you into star wars...twice! Poe is just such a little delight to write. He's such a fun and kind and wonderful character. I miss him a lot.

Tales Untold. My heart on a plate. Can't say much else about it. I loved the little community that sprung up around it. I'm still blown away by how strongly people reacted to it and felt about it.

Significant.... another of my beloved. I never thought it would get the reaction it did. I'm still floored by it. I just...I think every fiber of my being just loves Din Djarin. And that came out in that fic. It was also one of understanding. Of accepting someone as they are. Of holding up a mirror and saying, this is okay.

Honeyed. I'm glad you loved Honeyed so much. In a lot of ways, I was shaking my own soul around and seeing what would come out. I'm glad you could feel seen and understood in Joel and Honey's eyes.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart for this ask, and all the others you've sent like it, which I will get to. It wasn't too much, I'm glowing with love. I am mentally hugging you back, if you would like that sort of thing.

#bec talks

[writingquestionsanswered]

How long is a normal length of time to work on an outline? (Sorry this kinda turned into a ramble) I decided to actually sit down and outline a novel I started in 2018 but dropped, mainly because I had no idea where I was going with it. During the pandemic, I discovered the wonder of actually outlining and sticking to a schedule-ish, and I managed to write a couple of short novels. Now, to myself, I call these "practice novels". They're not that good, but I needed something to practice with so I took really old stories I had discarded and just wrote them down, I had the time and needed something to write. Now, I wrote a short novel in January-March last year that came out really good, maybe the best I've written so far, and in November I started a sequel and finished it a little over a month ago. It also came out really nice. Now, it's normal for me to start thinking of my next project when I'm about to wrap up the one I'm currently working on, and this time I decided I was going to work on this 2018 project. It's also normal for me to take some time off to cool down when I just finished something, reread and revise, and basically get some rest before I get in the mood to write again. Now, a friend of mine has been asking repeatedly why haven't I written in so long and if something had happened. She even recommended me some books to get me inspired again. And honestly? I don't really feel in the mood to write yet, and I feel like my outline is still incomplete. I'm doing research and taking my time to properly develop the characters and the story. I already had a go with this one once and dropped it. This time I want to do it right, I don't want to rush it, I really like the story and the characters and want to make the best I can out of it. I kinda feel pressured by this friend but I also feel like I should just follow my gut and prepare the way I feel best.

Spending a While in the Pre-Write Phase

Every writer is different, and every project is different, so there's no right or wrong amount of time to spend outlining your story or in the pre-write phase in general. The only potential definition of "too long" there is would be spending so long outlining/in pre-write that you never actually write the story.

"Percolating" and Practice Matter

If you're not quite ready to work on this story because you feel the ideas need more time to percolate, that's absolutely fine. You should trust your gut on that and not friends who are pressuring you to write. But if you're not actively engaging in the pre-write phase of this story... for example, outlining, world building, developing characters, etc., it might at least be worth considering doing some writing prompts to exercise your writing brain in the meantime. Writing is a lot like bike riding in that you won't forget how to do it if you don't do it for a long time, but the required muscles lose their strength just a little bit. So things like reading, journaling, and doing writing prompts are some good ways to keep those writing muscles engaged. And you can even do writing prompts related to the story you're outlining, too. The first nine suggestions in Getting Unstuck: Motivation Beyond Mood Boards & Playlists has some story-related prompts you can try out. Getting Excited About Your Story Again has some other story-related prompts that are fun and can help you flesh out your characters and setting in surprising ways.

It's Okay to Politely Tell Writer Friends to Chill

All relationships take work, even relationships with writer friends, and those can be particularly prickly because part of being writer friends is to help motivate one another, but there can be a delicate line between motivating and nagging. Sometimes people don't realize they're crossing that line. So when you feel like a writer friend is putting pressure on you, don't be afraid to say, "Hey, I really appreciate your support and the motivation you give me, but right now I'm focusing on taking a little break to clear my head and let this old story percolate a bit before I start working on it."

I hope that helps! ♥

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

I’ve been writing seriously for over 30 years and love to share what I’ve learned. Have a writing question? My inbox is always open!

Learn more about WQA

Visit my Master List of Top Posts

Go to ko-fi.com/wqa to buy me coffee or see my commissions

#writing tips #writing help #writing advice #wqaadvice

[ratralsis]

That's all there is of that story

And that was the end of that.

A couple of years ago, as part of my short story writing classes, before I started working on my novel in earnest, I actually did write a pair of extremely short (I think 400 or 500 words?) stories that were a sort of prequel and sequel. I might post those later, just to prove that there's no sense in writing any longer prequel or sequel story. The story's told. Kevin and Marigold met, spent a year together, fell in love, and probably got married way too young.

It was an exercise. A way to keep writing between drafts of the novel without working on the novel itself. I enjoyed writing it, for all its flaws.

Here's something I said to a friend of mine who read the previous version of this story and really didn't like it:

-----

The story is still what it was three years ago. Kevin barely has a character arc: he starts off with a lot of the autistic awkwardness that I have, and he ends with it, too. I don't know if he's actually autistic or even all that awkward. It could be that he comes off as insensitive or mean. The intent was to show that he doesn't know how to react when Marigold becomes emotional or distraught about discussing her past, so he just kind of freezes up and starts thinking hard about what the "right" thing is for him to do. That's me. That's what I do. His growth is that he learns to trust Marigold more and accept her for who she is, and make more compromises in his life to suit her needs. But I don't know if that's really much of an arc.

Marigold's arc is meant to be about how she starts off as a stereotypical beautiful manic pixie dream girl, and Kevin gradually comes to realize that it's a facade and a defense mechanism and that she's very emotionally fragile when she has to lower those defenses and be herself and let others get close to her.

There are parts I'm proud of and parts I'm not. But I still don't think it's good. I'm at that point in my creative development where I can read something like Peter S. Beagle's The Last Unicorn and see a sentence like "With a flap of her hand she summed herself up: barren face, desert eyes, and yellowing heart" and think, god DAMN but that is some incredible description, but there's a world of difference between being able to appreciate someone else's art and being able to make my own at that same level.

So I write a lot about facial expressions. People smile at each other a lot. They grin. They beam. They light up. They nod. They lean one way or another way. They bend down. Sit. Walk over. Move toward. At one point, Kevin pads his way up a flight of stairs. It's a limited vocabulary, because it's how I think. It's how my head works. Blame it on years of video games with limited verbs. "Walk" is a solid verb to describe a character moving from one area to another. But nobody "ambles" or "strolls" or "leisurely makes their way" anywhere. Maybe they should.

This story was an exercise. A bit of practice between rewrites of my novel, which I find myself hating more and more with each draft and each pair of eyes that reads it.

Hopefully, you find at least a little enjoyment in it. I'm glad I wrote it, and I had some things in it that I very badly wanted to say (that loving someone is a choice you have to make every day, that loving someone and trusting them are two very different things, that trusting someone is a painful thing, that family means more than who your biological parents were, that anything can be forgiven, and that violins look like ukuleles to the untrained eye), but I'm not so vain as to think "I meant well" and "I did well" are the same thing.

-----

That about sums it up, I think.

But, as I said before I started posting any of it, I'm happy to answer any questions if anybody has any. I can say that with such confidence because I don't expect anybody to ask me anything.

That's not reverse psychology where I'm daring you to ask me something. It's just good old-fashioned self-deprecation.

#ratralsis writing #ratralsis strings

[chipthekeeper]

chip grades the star wars

by representation of women

Time for more unasked for and only mildly thought through opinions by me. Usually I rate with numbers but for whatever reason this one was easier to do by letter grades (American-style, sorry). I’ve been known to forget important shit so I reserve the right to totally change my mind once I remember or am reminded. Okay, worst to best with the women I can name/remember and not-so-brief explanations:

Resistance:  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I wish I’d kept watching this both times I’ve started. Seems like there’s some good women in it. But unfortunately still a male lead. Bleh.

Revenge of the Sith: D-

Crying Padme…………….Beru cameo….dead Jedi… -- This one is ROUGH. If I didn’t love the movie it would be an F. There’s literally one woman who appears for more than like 10 seconds and she gets murdered by her husband. Not a great look.

Attack of the Clones: D

Padme, dying Shmi, uhhh...Jocosta Nu…? -- Maybe could have been C level if they hadn’t made poor Padme look so insane in falling for Anakin AFTER he rants about slaughtering a bunch of innocent people for no reason.

Empire Strikes Back: C-

Leia…..randos in background -- If it was made today, Lando’d be a chick. Lando’d be Sana Starros. I wanna see that movie. Holy shit I wanna see that movie.

The Phantom Menace: C

Shmi, Padme, not-Padme, Yaddle? -- Really running the gamut in this one. We’ve got “everything” from Slave Virgin Mary to badass queen but also is-that-even-the-queen-or-is-it-just-her-decoy. If it was made today there’d be at least 2 lady pod racers so ahem, Lucasfilm get on it.

A New Hope: C

Leia, Aunt Beru -- I was very tempted to rate all the OT ones higher just because of how fucking wonderful Leia is and to be fair she is of course the best female character of the time in this type of movie. But…..come the fuck on. TWO women in a whole movie and one of them wasn’t allowed to wear underwear and the other gets literally roasted to a crisp??? Do better, George.

Return of the Jedi: C

Leia, Mon Mothma…..Jabba’s dancing girls? -- Same shit, different flick.

The Rise of Skywalker: B-

Rey, Leia, Jannah, Maz a little, Rose I guess, Jodie Comer, etc. -- Kinda don’t know what to say about all this. I had B+ at first but I feel like there was a lot of wasted potential. Outside of Rey (and Leia stuff I can’t talk about without losing it) there’s not much to look at here.

Rogue One: B-

Jyn, Lyra, Mon Mothma, Leia cameo, lady pilots!! -- Gonna get up on my soapbox and say that Mon Mothma is one of the most underrated Star Wars characters. I’d talk about Jyn and Lyra but then I might start cr--nope, I’m already crying.

Solo: B

Qi’ra, Val, L3-37 (absolutely counts), Enfys -- I absolutely LOVE every woman in this movie. Would be an A if half the big ones didn’t die :/

The Clone Wars: B

Ahsoka, Padme, Satine, Bo-Katan, various Jedi -- Had this at a C+ before I remembered there were more centrally recurring people than Ahsoka and Padme, BUT. One dies, one’s a part-time terrorist, and the others are just plug and play. Kinda still want to go B- but Ahsoka’s really carrying this shit across the finish line.

Rebels: B+

Hera, Sabine, Governor Pryce, Ketsu, Leia cameo -- I would die and kill for both Hera and Sabine. If and when they come to live action I will cease to exist.

The Force Awakens: A-

Rey, Leia, Maz, Phasma, various rebels -- It’s never not going to give me a chill to watch Rey pilot the Falcon or call the lightsaber to her past [redacted]. Never. I feel bad for every fanboy who hated it. They’re really missing out.

The Last Jedi: A

Rey, Leia, Maz, Phasma, Rose, Holdo, various rebels -- Physically pains me to give this such a strong grade when one of the things I loathe about this movie is the Rey + [redacted] stuff but I’m big enough to say it does a great job with basically everyone else. Except Phasma. Fuck you for that one, Rian. (also someone ask me about Holdo, I need to talk about her more than this)

The Mandalorian: A

Cara, Omera, Pelli, Fennec, Xi’an, Frog Lady, Bo-Katan, Koska, Ahsoka -- I mean holy shit. So many (hot) women. So many different kinds of women! This is the bar. Oh, if only one of them could be a real full-time character and not written off the show because she’s played by a trash person :((((((  (also, like,,,fucking name Frog Lady pls. Misty Rosas deserves that)

Bonus grade for canon SW books/comics: A+ --  Doctor Aphra, Sana Starros, Rae Sloane, Norra Wexley, Alphabet Squadron gals, Avar Kriss & other High Republic ladies, so many more -- On the whole, this is actually the standard. So many of these things have female leads and there’s absolutely no reason not to do that more on the big screen. I have no idea what some of my favorite Star Wars women are supposed to look like because they’re just stuck in books. Which is a great medium, don’t get me wrong. But they deserve more!!

#maybe this was just an exercise in making myself say good things about the sequels #idk #i need like...a real blog #star wars #rebels #clone wars #the mandalorian #star wars opinions #please talk back to me about this crap #my posts

[13uswntimagines]

I Should Sleep With You More Often (Sam x Reader)

Sequel to Works Like a Charm  where Sam and Reader finally get together. It’s a very fluffy piece, with a little bit of late night breakfast making and a surprise kiss. 

special thanks to @literaryhedgehog​ cause this wouldn’t have happened without her. 

Hello?”

“Hey, I can’t sleep.” Sam’s voice comes over the phone, getting straight to the point with frustration.

“And you’re calling me about it? At 3 am. I could have been asleep you know.” You huff into the phone, pinning it between your chin and your shoulder. 

“Were you?” She asks, and you can almost see her eyebrow quirking up. 

You look down at the frying pan where you were about to pour your egg-cheese scramble. “No. But still.”

“Don’t worry, I appreciate the irony of the situation,” she says, with an attempt at humor. “can I come over?”

“Sure. You can split my omelet.” You hum, your tongue poking out as you make sure the entire omelet landed on the plate instead of the floor. 

“Omelette?” Sam asked, sounding amused. “I thought you weren’t supposed to --” 

“Eat anything after 9 pm I know, I know. But I woke up and was hungry, and couldn’t just ignore it to fall back asleep for two hours. I had to eat something or I was going to get nauseous.” You interrupted her, waving your hand dismissively. 

“What?” Sam asked entirely confused. 

“You know that feeling, where you’re like, so hungry that you get kind of nauseous?” You tried to explain again. 

“No…” She trailed off. 

“Oh, well it’s the worst. I like to try to eat something before it gets too bad because otherwise, the food won’t do anything. Anyway, I made enough you can have half of it, just let me know when you get here so I can send down the elevator for you.” You said, whipping your hands off and walking towards the door. 

“I’m actually just parking,” Sam’s voice came sheepishly over the phone. In the background, you heard the unmistakable sound of her car being locked. She always insisted on clicking the lock button twice so it would beep, like she didn’t trust it to lock the first time. 

You shook your head and left your apartment to buzz her into the building. “You’re telling me that at 3 am, before even checking to see if I was awake, you just decided to come to my apartment because you couldn’t sleep?”

“Yes?” 

“You’re insane,” you said, hanging up the phone as the elevator door opened to reveal her tall frame. 

She ruffled the hair at the back of her neck, grinning. “I knew you would be awake?”

“Bullshit.” You led the way back to your apartment and grabbed two plates from the cabinet. “You want soy milk?”

“What?” 

“Soy milk. I’ve got vanilla or dark chocolate.” For some reason, soy milk helped reduce the insomnia nausea more than anything else most days. Still, the omelet smelled amazing. 

“Um sure, vanilla please.” She shrugged, and you rolled your eyes. Vanilla was for the weak. 

You pulled out both cartons and two glasses, before cutting the omelet in half and handing her a fork. 

“Don’t I get my own plate?” Sam whined, cutting off a piece of the Omelet and popping it into her mouth. 

“People who come barging into my apartment at 3 AM have to share with the host. Unless you wanna do dishes?” You raised your eyebrow at her, pointing your fork in her direction, smirking when she emphatically shook her head no. 

She quickly changed the subject, avoiding your eyes as she ate. “So how are you liking your apartment, it’s new right?”

“Yeah, I moved in four months ago, you know when I suddenly got traded to North Carolina,” you said, a very bitter edge in your voice. How Mark could let you leave the thorns you would never know, but at least Hinkle was retiring. 

You took another bite “So why couldn’t you sleep? At camp, you’re usually snoring like a freight train by now.” 

Sam paused mid-bite, fork in the air. She looked like she was debating how to answer then, stuffed her last piece of omelet in her mouth. “I donb snowe.”

“You totally do. Rose even sent me the video evidence if you wanna see it,” you smirked, standing to go get your phone. 

“No!” Sam jumped up and you sprinted across the kitchen to get out of her reach, grinning. “You really don’t have to do that, it’s not a big deal.”

“Oh, but I really don’t mind,” you taunted, starting for your phone before Sam tackled you. Well, it wasn’t a tackle so much as a grab, but she had a good foot and a half on you, so same difference really. 

“Put me down. This is highly unnecessary,” you sputtered, laughing from Sam’s shoulder. “I’m not supposed to exercise within an hour of bed. My therapist would be unhappy with so much activity.”

“Yeah cause eating an Omelette at 3 am is totally something she would approve,” Sam rolled her eyes, as she tossed you onto your couch.

“Lies and slander. I won’t get the alleged snoring video, but seriously. Why are you here?”

Sam sighs, and slouches onto the couch next to you, dropping her head into your lap. You smile down at her, liking this new angle. While you certainly didn’t mind being the baby of the team, it was kind of nice to do the petting for once.

“I don’t know,” Sam said, furrowing her eyebrows.

“You were never a good liar. It’s why everyone catches you when you try to pull pranks. I hear it helps if you talk about it,” You murmured, using your thumb to smooth out the crease that formed between her eyes. 

“Fine, I couldn’t sleep because I kept having nightmares. It felt like, I was tossing and turning for hours, and then every time I dozed off, my brain came up with these fucked up images. Like, silence of the lambs shit. I could sell some horror film director the plotlines and make bank, I’m telling you. And since Rose and Wilma moved out, my place has felt so empty. It felt like, the panic attacks I used to have before games. When I had to always bring a bag with me to hyperventilate into before I could get my mind on the game.”

You frowned. “I don’t remember that.”

“Once you became my bus buddy I didn’t have that problem. You got me out of my own head with fun word games and stupid jokes. Remember that time you gave me the sentence ‘The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog?’ You kept grinning telling me to stop stressing out, it would be alright, to just guess a letter.” 

“Because whatever you guessed would be right.” You hum smiling down at her. 

 “You couldn’t take that shit-eating grin off your face, you jerk, but like, it helped me stop second-guessing myself. Sitting on the bus with you, I’ve never felt more calm going into a season. And so I just thought. It’s dumb but I hoped coming here would help.” She shrugged. 

“It’s not dumb Sammy. You help me sleep too. Why do you think all the vets insist I sit with you?” You said softly, leaning down to kiss her forehead. 

“Because you used to fall asleep literally everywhere and they hoped I could get across the aisle and catch you before you hit your head?” She giggled and you snapped her shoulder lightly. 

“Wow. Thanks.” You said in a monotone, “Or maybe it’s ‘cause you’re my favorite teddy bear.”

“If anyone is the teddy it’s you. You’re like half my size,” She giggled. 

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” you muttered, playfully pushing her head off your lap. “Come on you giant.”

“Where are you going?” She asked, allowing you to pull her to her feet. 

“To go grab you a toothbrush and a fresh pillowcase for the bed.” You said, your tugging getting a little more insistent. You really wanted to get to sleep tonight. You had been so good lately (ignoring the random omelet you cooked tonight).

“Oh, um. I was hoping we could just watch television on your couch and I would fall asleep,” Sam rambled, eyes wide. “I mean, not that I mind, but I didn’t want to like, invade on your--”

“Just come up to my room. It’s no big deal, it’s large enough for both of us, and I honestly don’t think that couch is even big enough to fit you. Besides, maybe it will help you sleep to be on a mattress actually purchased in this century.”

“Hey, I like my mattress!” She grumbled indignantly, crossing her arms. 

“You flip it twice a month because it keeps forming an indention where you’ve slept!” You said exasperated. That sleepover had been a terrible idea and you stood by that. At least your bed didn’t spit out feathers when you turned over too fast. 

“Well, I. um. No comment.” you hear her say as you go to take your turn in the bathroom. 

When Sam gets back from brushing her teeth you’ve done everything except turn out the lights. You look up from your side of the bed as she pauses in the doorway. 

“Is this… Welcome to Night Vale?”

“It helps me ignore my thoughts. Can you get the lights please?” 

You had to replay the podcast the next day after Sam left. You couldn’t remember anything after “Wednesday has been canceled due to a scheduling error” because within moments you were asleep.

*****

You thought that sleeping with Sam was only supposed to be a one-night thing, but it wasn’t. One night turned into two, which turned into the two of you usually crashing at each other's places. 

If you were being honest, it was the best sleep you had ever gotten. It was nice to have someone there to hold onto, to protect you from the bad dreams. The problem was that your feelings were edging past the line of friendship, and you had no idea what to do about it. 

It started with a team party you both went to, where Sam offered to be the designated driver. After she dropped everyone else off, you told her she might as well stay the night at your place since it was already so late and she did. And you both slept great. And then you had your usual Saturday spa night the next night, and you were several shots in and it wouldn’t have been responsible to drive home. And you both slept a solid seven hours. 

Not that Sam was a magical cure to your insomnia. You still had nights where your brain was like a train running off the rails, unstoppable no matter how hard you tried. Yet, having her there helped. She made sure blue lights went off when they were supposed to, and your late-night breakfast-making was kept to a minimum. AND after the first few nights, you realized that she was amusingly clingy in her sleep. Which meant that occasionally if you woke up and tried to get out of bed, she would sleepily grab you and hold you in place murmuring about whatever was happening in her dream. Since you couldn’t get up you had to just lay there, which normally might have been boring, but with her was amusing as you listened to her rambling state of consciousness. 

You sighed, staring up at the ceiling. You really needed to get your shit together and just ask her out. But what if she said no, and you lost your cuddle buddy? That would suck royally, and if you lost your bus seat it might completely curse the USWNT. 

“Alright, I can practically feel the steam coming out of your ears, spill,” Sam groaned, rolling over and throwing an arm around your waist. 

“Isn’t it weird?”

“What?”

“Time. Like someone decided that seconds were a thing and a certain number of seconds equaled a minute and there were a certain number of minutes in a day. Like someone just decided it was a thing, and everyone went along with it and now we all have to plan our lives around this arbitrary system. I wonder if that asshole realized that people would use it to put kids in detention and force them to cram so they could regurgitate facts in a specified amount of his made-up system. And like the Romans made a Calendar and the Mayans did one too…” Your rambling was cut off by Sams’s soft lips touching your own in a quick peck before she collapsed back into the pillow. “Just blame capitalism babe.”

You stared at her for a minute, shocked, before she bolted upright. “SHIT. Sorry, I just. I forgot to ask for consent. I just forgot--”

“I consent, yes, more of this please,” you said, leaning over to kiss her again. Your hands cupped her cheeks and her fingers tangled into the baby hairs at the back of your neck. 

After a few minutes, Sam broke off the kiss, both of you breathing heavily. “Um, wow. You know, I’m not sure this is helping you get to sleep, love.”

You smirk, biting your lip and straddling her hips before you lean in to kiss her again, slowly. “You’re the one who said you needed to sleep with me more often.”

#uswnt imagine #uswnt imagines #uswnt x reader #sam mewis imagine #sam mewis x reader #literalhedgehog

[dp-marvel94]

For the "40 Questions - Meme for Fic Writers"

(I have many, just pick a few if you don't feel to answer all - though I am curious :) )

8, 9&10, 15, 17, 18, 21, 23, 29, 37, 38

8) Share a snippet from one of your favorite dialogue scenes you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it. From Face to Face, chapter 13

[Jazz said] "I didn’t even believe in ghosts until thirty minutes ago.”

Phantom raised an eyebrow, amused. “But you boo-lieve in me now?”

Fenton snorted. “I think it ghosts without saying.”

“Oh stop it.” Jazz waved a hand.

“Come on. These puns are ghoul-den.” The ghost grinned, white teeth sparkling.

“Positively spooktacular.” His human finished and both laughed.

Jazz rolled her eyes, though she couldn’t hide her smile. “I don’t think I’ll ever get used to this.”

Anytime I come up with puns or jokes, I'm really proud of myself. Humor isn't my strong suit but I do love Danny's puns and him bantering with himself so much

9) Which fic has been the hardest to write?

Face to Face has been a long exercise in planning, patience, and persistence. Setting up things and making sure they pay off is hard with a story this long. And just writing sometimes, when the inspiration is waning.

10)Which fic has been the easiest to write?

That's hard. I'd say "Mom makes Everything Better." It's short so I managed to write in one sitting without too much agonizing over what I was going to write.

15) If you could choose one of your fics to be filmed, which would you choose?

I don't really have an answer for this one. :/ Most of my stuff is very introspective so it wouldn't work very well as a movie. I'm going to say, "Hope can be a Heavy Thing to Hold." There's a good number of fight scenes in it and the ending would be absolutely heartbreaking to watch.

17) Do you write your story from start to finish, or do you write the scenes out of order?

Start to finish. I feel like, things would get really jumbled and confusing for me if I tried to write scenes out of order.

18) Do you use any tools, like worksheets or outlines?

I have a Google doc with fic ideas and the outline for whatever story I'm currently working on. According to my outline, I've got 13 chapter left in Face to Face. But then again, that outline's very flexible. I mostly have it to write down ideas so I don't forget them.

21) How many times do you usually revise your fic/chapter before posting?

Maybe once? I write really slowly and tend to agonize over my words. Whenever I sit down to write, I re-read what I wrote the last time before starting on the new stuff and I normally make small changes then. But by the time I got over it with the beta, we just look at grammar and spelling. At the most, she'll make minor suggestions to a few lines.

23) If you were to revise one of your older fics from start to finish, which would it be and why?

I don't think I'd revise any of them, actually. Some of the older stuff could stand to be re-edited for grammar and spelling but I'm happy with the actual content, I think.

29) If you could write the sequel (or prequel) to any fic out there not written by yourself, which would you choose?

This is really hard! I'm trying to think of stories that I commonly day dream about a potential sequel. The top contenders at the moment would be Smokescreen by Nylah and Masquerade by Five-Rivers. As I said in the endnote of my Invisobang story, I am you (and you are me), Smokescreen ended very similarly to where that one began. And for years, literally years!, I'd been thinking about what would have happened after that story, with Danny coming to accept his new self and his loved ones learning the truth. I wanted to see it, so I finally decided to write my own version, damn it! But with the actually events leading to that shared outcome being so different, I'd still love to see what happened after that story, especially with the romantic plotline. I don't write romance but that would really be interesting, to see Sam's reaction to the fusion, especially with Danny trying to argue that his clone dating her wasn't an act. The clone really did love her and Danny knows this because he remembers being him. That's a heartbreaking conversation I've been thinking about on and off for a long time.

And Masquerade, after that story came out, Five-Rivers and I did DM and brainstorm about what would happen in a sequel for a bit. I would never trust myself to actually write a sequel for that but daydreaming and hoping is fun :)

37) Talk about your current wips.

So I'm still working on Face to Face. I'm hoping to finish by February which will be the two year anniversary of the story. I'm to a part in the story that's supposed to be fluffy with a lot of family bonding and very little angst so... it's really dang hard for me but I'm getting there. I'm really excited about a bunch of scenes that will probably be in the last five chapters or so. I've literally had some of these things in mind for years so I'm excited to get to them. But I've still got a lot of work before the resolution can finally come.

On another note, @magicalmonsterhero submitted a post recently asking about some AUs, including one where Vlad and/or Danny's powers were not the result of an accident, which led me to what I call "The happy version of Danny was an experiment created by the GIW (and Jack and Maddie are scientists contracted to the project)" I wrote out an outline one the post but decided to expanding it into an actual story for Ectober. I hope to have to done for Nightmare vs Sweet Dreams on October 24th.

38) Talk about a review that made your day.

Well, my lovely friend @mymadmedleyw getting reviews from you always makes my day. :) You always say so many nice things and are so encouraging.

On a funnier note, a few days ago, a long time reader on Fanfiction.net left a review saying they could tell my grammar and spelling had definitely improved which got some out loud after from me. XD

#danny phantom #my post

[goldkirk]

how I do just enough to take care of myself that I don’t totally spiral on really empty-well days

I’ve gotten 3-5 hours of sleep max for the past three days so to say that I’m not at the top of my game is an understatement. But I’m finally out of my total overwhelm and distress just enough to haul myself around today determined to do good things for my me and determined to work on therapy stuff that DOESN’T drain me or stress me out.

And to be serious about drinking water and eating at least twice and do some hygiene stuff. The more flat and hiding-downward and confused and wispy-ghost-that-can’t-hold-thoughts I am, the more I can’t do a lot of the really important routines for eating and caring for my body and getting concrete hands-on feels-satisfying-to-accomplish-it tasks that are the most critical backbone component of Katie Being a Functioning Human Who Feels As Minimally Lousy Physically As Possible (and its sequel, When Katie Has the Good Luck to Manage Several Days in a Row of Consistent Medication Times and All Basic Daily “Living Human Body”Routine Things, She Miraculously Will Actually Have More Capacity for Like, Everything). I also had an insurance issue getting a really important daily drug for several days so that. Really wasn’t a help.

THINGS ARE GOING TO BE BETTER FOR MY BODY TODAY BECAUSE I AM GOING TO GO AS SLOW AS I NEED TO BUT MAKE IT HAPPEN. No more shame. No shame and overwhelm paralysis. I only have to do three main things, and I am NOT allowed to beat myself up over it no matter if it takes me till 5 PM just to put shower and put on clean clothes. I’m gonna do it and I’m writing how I’ve learned to plan a day like this in case it can help any of you. 💛

Step 1: try to get in your body as much as possible—if you’ve got any pain or any discomfort or anything that really is making your experience of having a physical body way worse, try to drop any other plans and take care of ONE thing for that first. In my case, this morning I woke up feeling extra run down and empty and sore, and I figured out I needed food and also hadn’t drunk nearly enough water yesterday. I’m working on fixing that now. It’s taking me an hour to eat oatmeal, but it’s happening because I’m taking care of the me that shouldn’t need to be suffering this way and DEFINITELY doesn’t deserve to have me make it worse because I don’t want to do anything.

Step 2: think of a couple things that make you feel better when you do them OR bleed out feelings a bit without being too intense or hard for you to do when already low. For me, that’s petting Aoife, maybe doing a little bit of extra skincare or makeup if I’m up for it later, playing Cozy Grove if my eyes aren’t too tired, and (since I got given the homework to try it this week) trying to start doing art therapy but from literally the “what you’d have a toddler do” level instead of starting with trauma exercises or thinking/focused art things. IMPORTANT: if that art attempt starts feeling at any point like it’s making my mood bad or prompting me to get really sleepy/zoned out because my brain isn’t up for it, I’ll stop right away. I’m learning the lesson that it’s NOT worth it to push through chronic illness or mental illness symptoms that are your “pressure valve” indicators.

(I ignored my body on that issue for so long that this summer it went “FUCK’S SAKE WILL YOU LISTEN TO THIS THEN????” and escalated to literally forcing me to pass out asleep at any time of day with no more than two minutes of warning if I go too far past my body’s signals to please sit for a while or please stop trying CBT techniques or whatever. Don’t be like me. 😅)

Step 3: do not put those on to do list for yourself.

Step 4: think of the minimum body things you need to do to make your body actually feel better abd more human again—for me, that’s washing my face and putting the creams on it, washing my hair since it’s been a few days, putting on Real Shoes that lace, eating and drinking several things, and taking my medications as early as possible.

Step 5: do not those on your to do list either.

Step 6: pick THREE things. ONLY three things, or two if three is too much. The three things that you think will help you feel the most better if you do them before anything else. For me, today, that’s eating one thing, washing body/hair so I feel not gross, and putting on big-girl clothes that make me feel like I’m actually dressed for a real day.

Step 7: NOW you have your to do list. Go through those as slowly as you need to, and if/when you finish them, then you can pick two or three more things that you think would be the next nicest options for you, and then you can attempt to do those too. And once you’ve done a few things that are simple and concrete like this, it gets easier because your brain starts getting some nice dopamine rewards from seeing things visibly accomplished AND your body feels more comfortable and has more energy to do things.

I love you. You can do this. We’re all gonna be all right, believe me. Seeing as none of the trauma managed to kill us and we survived, apparently we’ve actually got plenty of time to improve and recover. We already survived! We did that part! We got the damage and now it’s about rehabbing our injuries. The story doesn’t stop right there, with us stuck in tangles of fog and dysfunction! Our bodies want to heal already, and we’re helping them when we can. Dysfunction is not what our default state is going to be stuck in forever. The story ends with us actually okay one day. 💛

#personal #trauma

[newsies-and-the-nutcracker]

Newsies but it’s French (Canadian) pt.2

(aka me just getting increasingly frustrated the longer it goes on until I’ve completely lost whatever bits of sanity I had left lol)

~ king of new york scene ~

“We’re in the papes??” “You’re in the papes.” why do I find this so funny help-

“For the good of Jack, we can stop complaining...” not the whole thing but that sounds so out of character for Race I can’t-

After a quick google search, I can confirm that Race says “The world is at our boots.”

The newsies are very confused

Apparently he was meant to say feet.

“I’m talking about our feet!”

…

hOW IN THE WORLD IS THAT EVEN CLOSE TO ‘THE WOILD IS YA ERSTER’-

Okay I’m done

“My own face on a piece of wood!” good for you ig

“I’m respectful. I’m looking at you.” please-

“I am pretty, am I not?” yes race you’re very pretty

“My own bed and an indoor toilet!” wait… does that mean you literally have a toilet outside?? In the open???

“Nothing more normal for a famous journalist!” Irdk how I’m supposed to process this-

“Leave, idiot! It’s her, the king of New York!” guys is this actually what he says in English?? Race why are you so m e a n

“Some…” *checks notes* “depressive defeatists” ?? I just want to know how you got that from “Buncha wet noodles”-

“We were on the verge of drowning ourselves in alcohol.” WHY AM I ONLY NOW FIGURING OUT WHAT SOME OF THESE LINES MEAN AS I’M WATCHING IT IN F R E N C H ???

They cut out a lot of the background comments during the dance break and now I’m sad

After Katherine’s little dance: “It’s a joke, I hope.” wow

“You’ll see what the Delancey’s do in their pants!” that sounds so wrong I-

“Friends can leave, let them be!” I don’t think that’s what they were trying to say but okay

~ letter from the refuge scene ~

“There’s guards here, they’re mean.” WOW JUST TEAR MY HEART OUT WHY DONTCHA-

“If they tell us to jump, we obey, if not we’re screwed.” ow

“The rooftop misses me.” I give up.

“It’ll go. I’m in shape.”

“End.” the only time they decide not the put ‘the’ unnecessarily in front of something-

“Good, that’s enough.” how rude

yeah that’s all for that song. I hope you guys weren’t actually expecting me to find much humour in that one

~ watch what happens reprise scene ~

“You are a love.” ??

Guys where I live if you say “tant mieux pour vous.” it means “Too bad for you” and that’s literally what Jack just told Davey-

“Stop. I understand. It’s useless.” eh close enough

“Good blood, where do you have to go to avoid you guys?”

“It’s impossible. We are inevitable.” since when did Davey actually become Thanos?

“And this here girl, Sally, she’s great.” :(

“We say that you wrote a good article.” “You seem horrible.” they’re much more salty in this version-

“Yes, it’s true. And, he is dead.” uhh guess who’s not going to Santa Fe-

“We can forget that and go back to work?” the person who wrote this had a real passion for butchering Les’ lines lol

“Be positive. No one is dead.” mmmmmmmmmmm-

“Is that what you’re hoping for??” MMMMMMMMMMMMMM-

“There’s no question of cents, Jack!” yk what? sure. i don’t even care at this point-

“We’ll do what?” he sounds like he doesn’t even want to win.

“We’re already winning.” “Agreed.” ABORT ABORT THIS ISN’T WHAT YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO S A Y JACK-

“And ‘voila’ why I think that Joe is an idiot. It’s a rattlesnake.” “... Yes.” you heard it right here, guys. if it’s a rattlesnek, it’s an idiot

“And you know why a snake whistles?” WHAT

“He is scared.”

“Go see, the poor of the head that’s spinning.” This is shredding whatever bits of sanity I had left-

“Why send the brutes?” idk why Davey

“You have maybe reason!” “Thank you!”

“And I have an appointment!”

no but when you say you have a ‘rendez-vous’ here where I live, it means you have like a doctors appointment or something lol

~ the bottom line reprise scene ~

“After his release, I surprised him myself!”

“If that’s the case, we’re going to bring him in... in softness.” nice of them

“... or the little thief?” I’m really starting to think that they lack like 99% of words in the French language-

“I was fighting in a war.” “And that turned out well for you?” get wrecked joe

“Rally as much as you want, no journal in town will talk about it.” guys I don’t have enough serotonin for this-

“Everyone here knows you’re horrible!” they made Jack sound like a little kid in the translation, and honestly I’m not even disappointed lol

“We’re missing time, little.” I don’t even know what to say-

“Your abject surrender was always the bottom of the problem.” sure why not

“Gentlemen, escort our guest to the cave-” well isn’t he nice?

“Be happy you’re alive, little. That’s the essential.”

“Yeah, so go!” ?? how is that even remotely close to “Yeah, so behave!” ??????

“I exercised my favourite American punch!” uhhhh good for you?

“You can sleep here, on this old press! It’s very firm.” help I’ve fallen and I can’t get up-

~ brooklyn’s here scene ~

“The sellers need our help! The sellers need our help! Tell them that Brooklyn’s arriving! Tell them that Brooklyn’s arriving!”

“We’re from Brooklyn, we’re the sellers from Brooklyn!” UHHHHH EXCUSE ME???

“We just learned that our friends are going wrong!” please you heard they were ‘going wrong’ like five days ago-

“You know we’re there for you, since always.” oH rEaLlY???

“Brooklyn is there!”

“Strikes aren’t nice, but they’re passionate!” well I’m glad you think so

“Let’s shout it, Brooklyn is there!”

“Aaaaand sooooooo!!” “Sooooooooo!!” “Soooooooooo!!!” “We will send you half road, just to Queens!”

“The pigeons are going to get soaked!” aaaaaand we’re back to the pigeons-

“What sad way to finish your career!” they sound so sarcastic I can’t-

“They’re not serious, but if they think we’re laughing…” i feel low-key threatened-

“Let’s shout it!” well if you try hard enough, you can make it sound like “loud and clear!”?

“Manhattan is theeere, Flushing is theeere, “Richmond is theeere, Woodside is theeere, and the Bronx too!!”

“Sorry, little. No news of him.” I just… why does it translate to “little”?

“You are alone, we could say.” “No.” “Yes.”

Medda really isn’t taking no for an answer-

“The sellers of journals of New York!” I’m crying why is it such a mouthful-

“You want to be treated like an adult? Act like an adult!”

~ something to believe in scene ~

“It’s Specs!” wow kath throw specs under the bus like that-

“And if I was a boy you’d be looking at me with a butter black eye!” I’ve officially given up on the French language I’m sorry-

“You win a fight when the other guy bites the dust.” and another one gone and another one gone-

“If there’s a way I could grab hold of something,” has literally been shortened to ‘if I could.’ IF I COULD-

“If I could stop time.” I’m so mad

“Really?” “Really.” ahhHHHHHHHHHHH

“But it’s going. It’s going.”

“... who didn’t even know she gave me a hope.” WHAT EVEN IS THE POINT IF THE TITLE ANYMORE??

“But it’s going. It’s going.” The thrilling sequel

“No. I’m scared of you.” “No!” yeesh-

“I believe in something.” good for you

~ once and for all scene -

“He is with us.” but like… how much?? only 99 percent????

“We could hold a hoedown here.” I feel like the person translating this just gave up by the end of the show-

“Happy to have found you again.” what did you like lose him or something

“The close.” ok yes that’s funny, but it gets even funnier when you realize it could also be translated to “the farm.”

“A little grease, and she’ll be like new.”

“This is for the guys who kill themselves at the factories.” w h a t

‘THE BANNER OF SELLERS OF JOURNALS’ I’m still not over this

~ everything that comes after that ~

“Anyone who doesn’t act in their own self interest is an idiot!” ey watch it-

also what the heck is ‘quiconque’ I swear I’ve never seen that word in my life

“We will find a way, but let’s seize the moment.” first it was “the chance” and now it’s “the moment” google translate are u okay-

They really went and changed ‘bully’ to ‘monster’ didn’t they

“You can make it.” he really makes it sound like Jack is about to die or something-

“It’s disgusting!” you’re disgusting sir

“And the world will know, we’ve been taking notes.”

“It’s a joke!” nope lol

“Goodbye, fool!” I’M LAUGHING WAY TOO HARD ABOUT THIS-

“Well you already work for my father.” “Yes.”

“Super, Jack Kelly!” I CAN’T-

“So, Jack, you’re staying?” yeah sure close enough-

“Sellers of journals on a mission!”

Das it ‘my friends’ lol. Hope you enjoyed.

#newsies #guys this took forever- #okay don’t get me wrong I love the French language but it’s just so much fun to make fun of #I go to a French school where you’re not allowed to speak English unless it’s English class so maybe I’m just bitter #anyway #tw: caps #justiceforspecs

[jinfluffychan]

The Tutorship (Seonghwa x You) One-Shot

Reposting it to see if tumblr really fixed the problem

@queenqk​ I hope you like it! ♡(◕ᗜ◕✿) Thank you for the idea! 💕

Summary: Seonghwa's always alone, even when he's one of the kindest people ever, so you decide to try to get closer to him, even if that makes you a mass of nerves... Will the plan to be friends with Hwa work?

This is a sequel from the headcanon "Ateez as your classmates", I recommend that you read it first so that you have a clear idea of everything.

Pairing: Seonghwa x Reader

Genre: fluff, student au, friendship

Word count: 1.470

Note: Please leave feedback! You will help me a lot and I will appreciate it very much! Thank you!

Support me with my studies in Ko-Fi (open commissions and donations)  ♡(◕ᗜ◕✿)

I was walking to my   class when I saw Seonghwa sitting on the stairs, looking at his phone while eating his bread, he's alone as always.

I have always felt sad when I saw him like that, he's so kind with everyone, I can't understand why he doesn't have friends...

"I wish I could talk to him..."

My cheeks turned red because of that thought, he's so cute that I became a mass of nerves when I'm near him... In my eyes, he's the handsomest guy in the school...

I walked, unconsciously, to where he was, but when I was about to call his name the bell rang.

Seonghwa looked up and his face showed surprise when he saw me standing there.

–Oh, Y/N, I didn't see you there –he got up and put his phone in his pocket–

–Y-yeah... I-I was looking for you! –I said with my cheeks red and asking myself what the hell I was doing– –Really? Why? –he looked at me with confusion– Tell me while we go to class –I nodded and started walking with him– –Did you understand the last subject of math?... –I said playing with my sweater– –Oh yeah, functions –he looked at me curious– You don't? –I denied with my head– Really? But you're always good at every class... –I wanted to ask for your help... I know you give tutorships to some people... Can you give me some, please? –I looked at him putting my hands together– –Sure, are you free today? –he gave me a warm smile while standing in front of the class door– –Yeah! Thank you so much Hwa! –I said looking at him with a big smile while walking to my spot–

When I sat on my spot I saw Seonghwa in his calm, and taking out his things; I smiled to myself and took out my things too.

"Maybe, before the class, I could buy him something! As a thank you for giving me classes..." Even if my cheeks couldn't be redder I felt them warm one more time because of the thought of spending the whole afternoon with him.

I drowned a scream and hid myself in my spot with my arms, I felt how my lips formed a big and excited smile.

–Are you okay? –I heard the voice of my best friend, I saw her and she just laughed– What happened? –Something good –I said without stopping smiling– –I see –she said with a smile, the teacher entered and the whole class got silence and start paying attention to him– I want all the details –she whispered to me–

I just smiled and drowned a laugh so the teacher wouldn't scold us, "I hope that after today I have a new friend..."

When school was over I told Seonghwa to wait for me in the library while I went to do something.

I went to the mini market that was outside of the school, there I bought two chocolate milks and two melon pans.

"I hope he likes it!" I thought while walking to the library.

When I was in front of the library door I heard someone scolding another person.

–What did you have in mind?! I have told you to stop looking for trouble!

I looked to where the voice came and I found Hongjoong scolding another guy that had the jacket of our basketball team.

–You do the same! –He said mad, he was taller than Hongjoong, but it didn't perturb him at all– –I'm not doing it anymore, no?. –He said calmly–  So stop getting in trouble, so we can focus on more important things.

The tall guy sighed and I decided to get inside of the library, "I hope they aren't in anything bad..."

When I walked inside I saw Seonghwa sitting there waiting for me, I approached him with a smile.

–Sorry for taking so long... I went to buy something for us! –I showed him and his eyes got big– –You didn't need to do that! –his cheeks got red as I gave him the chocolate milk and the melon pan– Thank you so much... You're so kind... –You're the kind one! You're always helping everyone and now you're helping me with this... So I needed to give you something in return –I said nodding, he giggled and gave me a big smile in return– –Thank you... We can eat it during the break... Now, let's start –He brought some books closer and start explaining to me–

We did some basic exercises and every time he finished explaining something he would ask me if everything was clear, it couldn't be cuter.

–You're really good with this! You just need to pay attention to some details –he said smiling to me– –It's because you know how to explain –I said shyly- –Thank you, but you're a good student too –he smiled– Now let's get into the next subject –The one with the graphics? –I said with a bored expression in my face and he giggled– –Yes, that one, don't worry! We're almost done!

He started explaining to me again while I was playing with my pencil, not paying so much attention.

–And then you need to do this so see if it's correct –he said showing me– –I thought you have to draw it before making it so we have the limits already... –I saw him– right?

He stayed in silence for a moment, looking at me with a serious expression in his face.

–You understand everything, don't you? –I stopped playing and stayed in silence for a moment– –Thanks to you yes –I said looking at him– –I gave you an incorrect explanation and you noticed –He said amused by the situation– and I heard when you were explaining to your friend how to do an exercise

I stayed in silence and looked at another place with my cheeks turning red.

–You heard that?... –he nodded– so why did you decide to continue with the tutorship? –I didn't know if you understood everything, I am certain now, but I wasn't going to be mean before and tell you to leave me because of some assumptions! –I played with my sweater and looked at him– Why did you waste your afternoon doing this? –Cause... Cause you're always alone, okay?! And that makes me sad! –he opened his eyes in surprise– You're kind and good with everyone... You deserve to have friends...

Seonghwa looked at me impressed, he leaned into his seat and looked at me.

–You really feel like that?... –I nodded and he sighed– It's difficult for me to make friends... That's why I'm always alone... –he looked at another place–

We stayed quiet for some moments, Seonghwa was lost in his thoughts and I was looking how to get us out of this uncomfortable environment.

I looked up and found the two chocolate milks and the melon pans, I took it and placed ones in front of Seonghwa and ones in front of me, he looked at me confused as I opened mine.

–It's time for our break... –I smiled shyly at him– lunch time?... –Seonghwa thought about it for a moment, he then took the chocolate milk and proceed to drink it– –I... Really like chocolate milk –he saw me shyly– –Me too –I smiled to him–

We stayed eating and chatting in the library for the rest of the afternoon, I saw a part of Seonghwa I didn't know he had, shy, calm and soft... He was even more sweet than before in my eyes.

–Thank you for giving me classes today... –I said walking out of the school with him– –No... Thank you for caring for me... –he smiled shyly– ... Can we... Maybe... Do this again? –he whispered covering his mouth with his hand, I winked trying to understand what he was trying to say– –You want to do this again? –I asked and he nodded with pink cheeks – Of course! –he saw me surprised and I smiled at him– There's a cultural festival in the city next week! We can go together! –I love festivals –he said smiling bigger– –Well! Now, you and me are going together –I stopped in a bust stop and looked at him–  this is the bus stop I take to go to my home –I took the subway so I think I will see you tomorrow –he smiled at me– Bye, Y/N –Bye Seonghwa –I waved my hand smiling–

He waved at me and started walking with a smile on his face, it was the same smile I had in mine... We were both happy to have found a new friend.

"After everything, this tutorship ended better than I expected..." I thought smiling while looking at the sky, the bus arrived and I boarded it, happy to have ended the day with a new friend.

#ateez #ateez fanfics #ateez imagine #ateez scenarios #ateez fluff #ateez boyfriend #ateez students au #kpop #seonghwa imagines #seonghwa imagine #seonghwa #seonghwa fluff #seonghwa scenarios #seonghwa boyfriend #hongjoong #mingi #san #yeosang #jongho #yunho #wooyoung #fluff #ateez imagines #imagines #fanfics #ateez fanfic #kpop scenarios #kpop fanfics #kpop imagines

[smol-and-grumpy]

Sky Full Of Stars - CH11

Sequel to Something Just Like This

Pairing: Dean Winchester x Reader

Summary: He’s Dean Winchester, ex mobster boss, still a little cocky, less ruthless and not at all short tempered anymore. Instead, he thinks he’s hilarious (she doesn’t agree, though). They both try to live a quiet life. And Dean hopes, very hard, that his former life won’t come knocking at their door.

Warnings: Angst, mention of depression, fluff

WC: 3205

A/N: This is the end, guys. I’m sad. I hope you enjoy the last chapter and thank you for letting me take you on this fabulous ride ❤️

SERIES MASTERLIST

...SIX MONTHS LATER…

 Dean’s sitting on their terrace in the big rocking chair. It’s already dark and cold. Ella’s sitting on his one thigh, cuddling close to him and Neo’s on his other side. Dean has a big blanket draped over all of them, so they would stay warm. 

It’s only a little past 8pm but it’s the weekend and Ella doesn’t have to go to school the next morning so he spoils her by allowing her to stay up past her usual bedtime of 7pm. They finished roasting marshmallows in their fireplace in the backyard and they have now brushed their teeth and changed into their pj’s. 

He’s doing that a lot with the kids now. He wants them to see the privilege of living so far out, wants them to see the beauty of being able to see stars. A view one shouldn’t take for granted. They’re outdoorsy, both of them love to be outside and play and he’s glad they have the chance to do that with their big garden and a treehouse by the creek.

Neo clasps his hand over Dean’s eyes while Dean looks up to the night sky. 

“See? See?” The little guy says and Dean has to chuckle.

“Buddy, I ain’t seeing a thing. Where are the stars?”

And then Ella joins in, her little hands on his face, squeezing at his cheeks and then she covers his nose. 

“And now I can’t even breathe,” He gasps, plays along.

The kids are giggling and Dean likes that, likes to hear them happy. 

He begins to tickle them both, and both of them are writhing in his lap. 

“Daddy, stop!” Ella’s still giggling like crazy.

“Stop doing what?” 

“Tickling us!”

“Only when you guys will let me look up at the stars and it'll be nice if I could breathe,” Dean’s still tickling.

“‘K!” Neo says, the little boy still laughs wholeheartedly, and Ella seems to agree with her brother for once because they settled next to him again, both trying to catch their breath.

Dean stares up, the sky is full of stars tonight, that’s why it’s so cold out. Their breathing fog up but they’re warm underneath the blanket. 

“What do you guys see?” He asks his children, sometimes their imagination run wild and they would see all kinds of things in the star’s constellation.

“Mommy,” Neo says. 

“Mommy?” Dean asks and he squints his eyes, trying to see what Neo sees.

“Ah, I see her too,” Ella joins in. 

“Yeah, now I see mommy too. Her nose is a little big, though,” The children are giggling again and Dean kisses the top of both their heads, “Come on, what else,”

“Princess!” Ella calls out.

“Dinosaur!” Neo tries to be louder than his sister.

Dean smirks and he just leans back, bathing himself in the momentarily joy. 

They get interrupted not even fifteen minutes later, when Linda comes to stand next to him. “I think it’s time for bed now,”

Linda had moved in to help him take care of the kids and that woman still gives him the creeps sometimes. Dean would never admit it to her, though. 

He gladly took the offer at that time, although he’s probably never going to get used to it. He even had another room built right above the garage so that Linda can live comfortably while she helps him. Dean didn’t want to employ a real nanny, didn’t see the need when he can rely on people he already knows and trusts. He has a hard time trusting anyone new lately. 

“You heard Linda, guys,” Dean kisses his children good night and lets Linda take Neo from his lap. The little boy started to walk yesterday. Another milestone reached. 

“Night daddy,” Ella whispers and pulls him down by the collar to give him another kiss.

“Night, El-baby,” 

“The physical therapist just left,” Linda balances Neo on her arms. The boy is already so big, it makes Linda look even smaller than she already is.

“Okay,” Dean answers, and watches Linda go in with his kids.

 Y/N can hear the chatter in her children’s rooms. Her room is black, only the light from the stars shining through the window. She looks up at the night sky, knows that Dean has spent the evening with the kids outside while she had her physical therapy session. Futile therapy sessions. With a private therapist who probably wants way too much money for the little progress they make.

“Hey,” She hears Dean slip in and he closes the door behind him, “You okay?” 

He walks over, leans in to place a kiss on the top of her head. 

Dean knows not to talk too much. She’s always frustrated and sad after a therapy session. If she can avoid it, she’d like to not see anybody at all.

She doesn’t answer him and Dean knows why, he’s used to it by now and it makes her feel even more guilty. 

After Dean shot Crowley, Crowley’s finger managed to pull the trigger, shooting her in the back. Unfortunately it went through her body in a weird angle, injuring her spine and puncturing her lung, too. She’s been in the hospital for almost a month, half of the time was spent in an induced coma. 

Waking up, Dean was by her side and it was a long road to get where she is now. Which is not really far and she doesn’t really know if she has the strength to go on. It’s frustrating when she works so hard without feeling or seeing any progress at all.

Dean kneels down and starts to massage her legs. He’s doing a daily range of motions exercises with her to help her along, not missing a single day since he started.

She watches him work on her legs, doesn’t feel a fucking thing at all and she’s tired, exhausted as hell after the therapy. Y/N doesn’t want to come across as ungrateful but she can’t help but wonder why he does all this. Why does he keep on going when everything seems so lost? 

And maybe she shouldn’t have let her mind wander to the dark place but she’s there now and she’s angry at herself, at Dean, at everything. 

“Why are we doing this, Dean,” It’s not really a question, more a fact. “Why are you still here?”

Y/N told him when he brought her back to the house that she’d get it if he wants to leave, maybe it’s still the effect of the words Crowley planted in her head. In fact, she even wants him to. Wants him to leave her and the children here and go live a quiet life somewhere without the burden of having to take care of the kids and her. 

Because that’s what she’s become. A burden that Dean has to carry, with being the only one who can take care of the kids — because she doesn’t have the strength to do it yet — on top of everything else. He didn’t sign up for this life and she gets it, because she didn’t either but she’s unfortunately still here and she has to somehow make it work. There’s no need for him to stay with her.

Dean looks up at her, the crease between his eyebrows deepens. He looks hurt. 

“It’s true. You’re doing so much but you don’t have to. I told you that I can manage. We’re going to be fine. Go have a boys week, I don’t know,” She’s tearing up and she actually doesn’t want to. Her grip on the arm of her wheelchair is tight, her knuckles are turning white. Dean’s unfazed, keeps on massaging the muscles in her legs, pretends he didn’t hear her, “You can still get out, you know. I don’t want to tie you down. I don’t want you having to take care of me. This is not what I fucking want!”

“Jesus Christ, Y/N! We’ve been through this, didn’t we,” Dean growls, he’s angry, she knows but she is too, so.

“And you know it’s fucking true! You’re always present. You’re taking care of all of us but who’s taking care of you, huh? We both know that it ain’t me, Dean! I can’t even take care of myself! You don’t deserve this! You deserve something better,” 

“Shut up,” Dean snaps, but his hands aren’t stilling, he continues to knead at her muscles. 

“You tend to our needs but what about you? What about your needs?”

“Fucking Christ, Y/N, shut up!” He gets loud and it makes her flinch.

She’s biting back at him though, “Tell me, what do you want, Dean? It sure as hell isn’t this fucking life! Tell me, what do you really want?!” She’s shouting and she can’t stop crying. 

Dean places her leg back and rubs over his face with both his hands. Her heart thumps in her chest, she knows that she’s being unreasonable but she’s really not doing great at the moment. 

“I need you, alright?” Dean’s loud and he’s shaking, “I fucking need you! How do you not get that?” He’s slowly breaking. She can see the tears pool in his eyes, see his shoulder trembling, “I FUCKING WANT YOU!” He screams before he lays his head in her lap, his arms hugging her middle when he begins to sob with his face buried in the cleft of her thighs. 

She’s sobbing with him, strokes at his hair, her hands wandering down his trembling back as far as she can reach. 

Dean’s breakdown was long overdue. She heard from Cas that he didn’t shed a tear once. Didn’t let himself show any emotions at all except for when he’s around his kids. 

All Y/N said was true though. She doesn’t want that for him. Dean didn’t deserve that. But she might have gone overboard as well, triggered by her own frustrations and insecurities. And maybe she did use that to get him to break. She needed to get it out somehow. Maybe they all need to break in order to be able to put the pieces back together again and make it better.

He comes up, sniffs and brushes at his face with his hands before he takes his wet hands and cradles her face with it. He brushes at her tears with the pad of his thumbs and leans his forehead on hers, “I fucking want you to come back to us, alright? It physically pains me to know that your mind makes you think you’re worthless. I want you to see that life’s fucking worth living for, I need you to see it! Even this life is worth living for! I love you. We all do! I want you to be able to see our kids grow up, I want you to find joy, I fucking want to see you happy. I want you to come back to me!” 

She cries some more and he kisses her. Their faces, their lips, it’s all wet. 

“This depression is a bitch but I won’t give up, I refuse to give up,” Dean brushes his knuckles along her cheek as he lays his forehead back on hers, “I want you to come back to us, and I’m gonna be here waiting for the day you’re ready to come back. I’m not gonna fucking give you up. I fought too hard to be where we are now, I’m not letting a goddamn wheelchair stand in the way of what we can be. And you shouldn’t either.”

“Dean,”

“Shh, baby,” He hushes her, kisses her again, “Let's get you to bed.”

 ...ONE YEAR LATER…

Dean’s having one of his campfire nights with the kids, and they’re grilling marshmallows by the fire. 

It’s a clear night, they’re lucky with the weather this year. Summer wasn’t too hot and it seems like this Winter’s going to be a mild one. It helps with the wheelchair when there’s not too much ice and snow around whenever they need to go somewhere.

Linda’s still living here but Y/N’s doing better so he thinks that Linda can go home if she wants to but he also wouldn’t mind if she’d stay. He’s warmed up to the woman, and he can see that she’s warming up to him as well. Maybe she changed her mind about him, she must have. She even starts to cook now too, with the false pretense that she doesn’t really like the food Dean’s cooking. Her plate’s always empty, so he guesses that it’s Linda’s way to tell him that she’s ready to be involved more. 

Dean never told her to, though. He even said that she can go back whenever she likes but she has stayed and he thinks with Linda being here, Y/N has more reason to fight either. Maybe it’s also because Linda’s a cold hearted bitch when it comes to sorry excuses. She pep talks and drills Y/N until Y/N’s exhausted. Linda’s worse than a physical therapist, which they stopped calling in after the breakdown they both had. Linda’s more reliable, Linda knows Y/N’s limits. She also doesn’t get paid to crawl into someone ass and pretend that everything’s looking fine and Y/N made progress when the progress is zero and everything’s, in fact, not fucking fine. 

He’s sitting around the campfire, Neo’s on his lap, and Dean has one arm secured around the toddler. He’s afraid that Neo will fall into the fire if he isn’t holding him. 

When Dean looks away from the fire, he sees Linda wheeling Y/N into the backyard. They must have been going around the house because Linda couldn’t carry Y/N and the wheelchair down to the yard from their terrace. 

Inside of their house it’s a whole different story. They have two wheelchairs on both levels, so it’s easy if they can just carry her up and down and sit her right back into a ready wheelchair. Maybe Dean needs another one especially made for the terrain of their garden. 

Y/N’s smiling and so does Linda. Dean wonders what they’re up to.

Seeing her smile makes his heart leap and he smiles back. 

Her smile’s a rare sight, it’s absolutely rare seeing the genuine smile on her face. It makes him realize how much he misses it. How much he’s missing her. She’s slowly coming back and they’re nowhere near where they want to be, or rather where he wants them to be, but they’re slowly but surely taking baby steps into the right direction. 

She keeps on fighting and so does he.

Y/N’s around more either. Sometimes she would come down to sit around the couch with the kids. She’d read them stories, and Dean would listen too. And in those moments, it feels like they have gotten some normality back. In those moments, he can feel that she’s slowly accepting that her legs might never work again, accepting that she might be bound to a wheelchair to the end of her days. 

Dean’s also happy that she doesn’t doubt herself anymore, and by proxy, doesn’t doubt him. She can finally accept and wrap her head around the fact that he’s here to stay. Wrapping her mind around the fact that he’s not backing out just because something becomes uncomfortable. Just because something doesn’t fit the norm. He’s too old and too tired to give up on all that they’ve built up. He couldn’t leave this life, mainly also because all other lives don't seem worth living. 

He’s got his children, he has her. There’s really nothing else for him to wish for.

“Mommy!” Ella abandons her stick with a half burned marshmallow and skips towards Y/N and Linda. Neo’s getting restless in Dean’s grip. He watches as Ella runs to her mom and sits on Y/N’s lap, letting Linda push both of them forward.

Linda comes to a halt about three yards short of him and Ella gets out. Dean watches with raised eyebrows as Y/N grabs one leg after another, sets it on the cold solid ground.

And then, Dean can’t believe his own eyes when Y/N pushes herself up from the chair. 

Linda comes around, gives Y/N a hand to help steady her while Ella holds on to her mommy’s other hand. 

Dean can’t stop the tears even if he would try. He brushes at his eyes to be able to see better. 

“Daddy why are you crying?” Neo tilts his head around because of course he couldn’t hide that from the kids. Ella’s by Dean’s side now too, as she weaves her arms around Dean’s neck to kiss at his cheek.

“Daddy, mommy can walk!” Ella shouts out, her tiny voice’s full of excitement. 

“I can see that, yeah,” Dean chokes out but he’s smiling, and he still watches her, watches how her face frowns in concentration. 

“Why don’t cry,” Neo says again and Dean doesn’t really want to? He just really has to. 

“Why’s daddy crying?” Ella asks Neo, as if her brother knows the answer.

“Daddy’s just really happy,” Dean whispers, has to compose himself as not to break down in front of his kids, and then he stands up and lets Neo walk around, the little boy speeds to his mommy and Dean follows. 

When he’s close enough, he takes over from Linda and Linda takes the kids, walks with them back to the campfire as Dean steadies Y/N around her waist with one arm. His other arm trails along her cheeks. It has been more than a year since they saw each other eye to eye like this, with her being able to hold herself up on her own two feet.

She’s sweating and her cheeks are flushed. It probably needed more strengths than Dean could ever imagine. 

He kisses her, holds her a little tighter, “You can walk,”

“I can,” She breathes, “I mean, I won’t run a marathon tomorrow but I’m getting there.”

Dean has to chuckle, “You’re doing much better, don’t you?”

“Yeah,” Y/N answers, “I can’t believe how patient you were.”

“It was worth it,” Dean whispers, kissing her again, “Come on, let’s get you back into the chair before you collapse.” She lets him scoop her up and place her back into the chair. Dean takes his time to place her legs right, he massages the muscle a little, too. “You feel that again?”

“I do, it’s strange.” 

Dean smirks, “Can’t believe you were hiding that from me.”

“Wanted to surprise you.” She smiles and it’s truly the most beautiful thing he’s seen in a long time. “Thanks for waiting for me to come around.”

“I would have waited a lifetime if that’s what you would have needed,” He whispers and gets up, places a last lingering kiss on her forehead before he gets behind the chair and wheels her to the campfire.

And yes, Dean’s happy. 

Happy that after all, they can start to be a family again. Because this is it for him. This is what he always fucking wanted. This and nothing else. 

..The End

#sky full of stars #dean winchester #dean winchester fic #dean winchester fan fic #dean winchester fan fiction #dean winchester x reader #dean winchester x you

[sillyfudgemonkeys]

i havent been here in a hot second is there a reason for the makoto hate specifically? like the rants go back to p5's writing issues but the spite for makoto seems very specific did she kill someones dog in one of the spinoffs or what?

You're all good. So here's the thing, she did kill my dog-I'm joking.

When I say “I’m the residential #1 Makoto Hater” it’s a joke, partially cause it probs looks that way (and probs cause it might be true, who knows if you could quantify hate then maybe I’m at the top of the leaderboards 8U but you can’t so we’ll never know). But I’m saying it at as a joke, to own myself and everyone here that knows what I think of her, rather than wear it as a badge of honor or some silliness. It’s just a “oh haha yeah there goes Silly, dunking on Makoto again! She’s basically Makoto’s #1 hater haha oh she’s so silly.” (so please don’t look too deep into it, I just want to have fun).

Anyway, me hating Makoto isn’t new, but I do hold a similar ire towards Futaba, Goro (tho I have camaraderie with his fans, I relate to their struggle in terms of my own brown hair and red eye fav and Atlus screwing them over u_u I may hate your fave but I respect you and will be in your corner), and Yukari (as well as Chloe from LiS if you want a non-Persona example). Makoto might be talked about more because 1) She hits my buttons that much faster (Futaba/Goro are more like a festering wound, and when I talk about them it’s hard to pick a starting point), 2) Her fans tendency (early on in the fandom) bringing her up frequently.....was a bad combo with #1 (overexposure+pushing all my buttons really fast=disaster). Obvie not blaming her fans, but it was hard to curate how I was able to curate my content online (esp with gaming news websites calling her “best girl” when showing off a figure announcement or some BS when I just want to know what new games have been announced >.> I can do without you trying to start a waifu war in the comments Siliconera -_-)

Anyway, I think I’ve made my reasons for hating her very clear (you just have to search her name on my blog and you’ll get a ton of essays I’m sure, too many to count). And a lot of it is the failure of P5′s writing. “So it’s just the writing you hate, not the character.” No. Because that doesn’t make sense. Except under certain circumstances (which I’ll provide examples of below with Luke Skywalker), you can’t separate the writing from the character. The character IS the writing, the writing IS the character. If you can’t hate/dislike the char because “of the writing” then you also can’t love/like them either. The character and the writing/writing choices for that character are connected. The writing embodies that character. They are the same.

Now I said there was an exception, and that’s....”different writer/director,” tho it’s not ALWAYS the case (sometimes the new writer really gets the original writing, like Saito for MM.....they are very good at emulating the clusterfuck of P5′s writing). P5′s writing is the original basis for Makoto’s character, that’s her. You can’t separate it from her. Same thing with say....Luke Skywalker from the OG trilogy, that’s him. But then we get to the sequel/Disney trilogy, new writer/director....and yeah that’s a mess (from what I understand OG trilogy=Hopeful and tries to see the best in people, 2nd Disney=Cynic and tried to kill a child, 3rd Disney=Hopeful again for some reason). There’s character development, then there’s just straight up changing the character just cause you need them to be this now. 

*writes how this can apply to Persona spinoffs but deletes because I was getting too off track* Look at me exercising control. It’s probs best I save that for a meta after I’ve replayed all the spinoffs again.

But....if you want me to boil down my issues with Makoto, I hate the message we get from her. I hate the lesson we learn from her. What is supposed to happen vs what happens.  It’s supposed to be about a girl who is blindly following authority and becomes disillusioned with it after being burned by it, on top of “immense pressure” she has as well, and then comes to our side (we know this because Atlus told us). We don’t get that (we know this because we saw the execution). We get two adults, yes TWO ADULTS, one of which is her sister and wants her to do well in school (but isn’t like.....a tiger mom about it, because Sae can’t be TOO horrible because we need to like her later), who in retrospect seems very busy with her job (which gives Makoto freedom), but also feels burdened by her younger sister (in which she has one shitty slip with her and then NEVER again). And the other is a dumbass principal who asks a really strange and stupid task for Makoto that snowballs into bullshit. That’s IT! THAT’S IT! That’s all we get from Makoto and “authority.” Strawmen. We don’t really get much of her personality either (I’m not saying that cause “she’s cardboard” I legit just.....don’t get her? Like I don’t get enough of her to get a solid foundation, you get me?) Like as the player, what we see of her is she’s just studying in the library (Kamo arc), then the principal calls her in, she mentions the rumors about Kamo, he asks her to look into the PT in exchange for a recommendation (to which she’s surprised and says thanks, not no, she looks like she’ll accept JUST BASED ON THAT) but before she can even say Yes (OR NO) he threatens Makoto with her sister, to which Makoto hardens and then agrees. Then she acts like an asshole and yadda yadda stuff happens.

But if she’s supposed to blindly follow authority, she’d say yes, but then they don’t let the character breathe so she can make the “wrong” choice because the Principal goes STRAIGHT to threatening her.......so now the message is muddled, or really it’s non existent. The whole Sae thing is a nothing bag too, it’s just family drama. Her sister is, no HAS to be absent a lot for her work, just so Makoto can have the freedom to be a PT....which means....it hurts her lack of freedom and other stuff associated with Sae being a big pressure on Makoto’s life. You know, I’ve said before they’ve squandered Sae, and that Makoto’s presence really harmed Sae (iirc it was this post). But at the same time, how they handled Sae really screws up Makoto’s character. Neither are allowed to breathe. Neither are allowed to make a true, horrible choice...and then learn from it. They aren’t allowed to have an actual arc. Altus played it safe, took choice away from them, didn’t want to take risks with either character and have meaning. Instead we just have this nothing contradiction thing dicking around until they join our team. 

What really sucks about that....is we got that with the Kamo arc. With Anne, Ryuji, even Yuki and Shiho. Kamo was manipulative, and his manipulation caused people to make....not the best choices, all out of a means to survive. Ryuji physically acted against Kamo, and he got his leg broken, team disbanded, and outcasted. Anne was trying to protect Shiho’s position on the team, which lead to her almost getting harmed by Kamo, Shiho getting harmed, her not seeing the truth about what was going on around her, and she didn’t tell Shiho (because she didn’t want Shiho to think she didn’t get on the team for her own merits), and so on. Shiho didn’t tell Anne what was going on because she wanted to protect Anne from Kamo (and was afraid Anne would, very much blame herself), and her and Yuki and the rest of the teams helped keep quiet about Kamo so they wouldn’t be next on the physical chopping block. This isn’t me blaming them, this is me showing their choices, their attempts to fix their (hopeless) situation, to help themselves or others, and the dramatic irony being it just made everything worse. BUT, even tho Kamo was the real one to blame, each character is aware of the actions that were made, and the consequences of each action (esp Anne/Ryuji/Shiho). And in their CoOps, they identify this, and take strides to learn from it so it doesn’t happen again. That’s an arc. That’s character development. They were allowed to make errors, mistakes, decisions that negatively impacted themselves/other’s. We see a solid foundation of their character from the get go, and how it changes over that small time. We don’t get that with Makoto. The group is like solid concrete to Makoto who is like shifting sand. 

Sorry got a bit off topic, anyway, I hate her message of boasting about her fighting ability but she only harms her friends (outside of shadows, but that’s not special) WHILE ALSO being a damsel that needs someone else to rescue her! I hate how when she gets called out, she wants to drop it, and gives gaslighty apologies, even tho she really ROYALLY screwed lot of people very badly. I hate how she demands us to help, only to literally be a detriment to our investigation. I hate how she gets to fly off the handle without repercussions (despite needing to be cool calm and collected for her job, especially since she miraculously can do that when needed so what the hell????). I hate how the text has her be shitty, say shitty things, be bad at her job, but will turn around and reward her time and time again. 

Sure she doesn’t break the lore like Futaba, or unravel P5′s plot like Goro. But as a character with a message attached to her, even ones that the creators surely overlooked (I’m sure they didn’t intend for her to only hit her friends), it’s simple but very annoying. Fast and easy to see, doesn’t require me to think of P5′s lore as well as the grander Persona lore. Doesn’t require me to dig through text for Goro bread crumbs and then unravel the entire basis of the P5 plot thanks to him. Makoto is easier to get into, it’s smaller scale and more personal I guess. 

#silly asks #silly answers #makoto salt #the thing with Kamo's arc is that when you ask 'why' to why a character or a situation is the way it is you can give a decent 'because' #when you ask 'why' with kane's arc.....you don't get that #you get a 'because' but then you keep asking 'why' #why does makoto have to stalk the PT? Because the principal is making her do it #But why is he making her do it? Because the conspiracy is breathing down his neck. #1) WHY her tho? seems a bit contrived and might not work 2) WHY do they care about some principal? #Because......um...... For 2 because he's part of the conspiracy. #Why is he part of the Conspiracy then? Um....they put him there? #BUT WHY did they put him there? Cause....it's prestigious? #BUT the game said Kamo fixed the school's bad rep so it wasn't always that...and he hired kamo.....SO WHY does he owe them getting a job at- #-a shitty school? WHY did he need help getting a job there? WHY is Haru there if- #you see? kane's arc unravels a good portion of what P5 (a least school) is based off of #vs Anne #Why won't Shiho tell Anne about the abuse? She's afraid anne might think it's her (anne's) fault and she loves her friend and wants to- #protect her. why doens't anne tell shiho? Anne doesn't want shiho to think it's shiho's fault and wants to protect shiho #kamo's arc is full of dramatic irony and people making wrong choices (which they might not realize in hindsight) #why doesn't anne know shiho is being abused? Anne thinks shiho is upset about her position on the team also Kamo won't let anyone watch #the practices so we just take the team's words at face value also the teams are protecting kamo to keep from getting hurt- #also shiho won't tell anne anything and so anne just assumes it's a rough practice and that shiho is afraid of losing her spot ALSO #ALSO anne isn't psychic also anne is outcasted from the rest of the school so she doesn't interact with them so she doesn't know what's up- #with other people and- #you can go on they have their bases covered in kamo's arc they have reasons #kamo's arc is also a bit more grounded (kane being ungrounded because of the stupid princpal and his bs0 #sorry for the side rant just....... #you don't have to agree with decisions in the kamo arc...but at least they GAVE us reasonings (and the chars are aware #in hindsight that their decisions weren't great and chose to learn from them)

[justlookfrightened]

How hard could it be? Epilogue

A/N: I’m posting this as the epilogue of “How Hard Could It Be?”, but it’s actually going to be the first chapter of its as-yet-untitled sequel. Look for updates on AO3 after “How Hard Could It Be?” finishes posting.

“Come on, Jack, answer.”

Bitty heard the ringing change to the mechanical voice reading the phone number and telling him to leave a message.

He hung up and looked at  the time. Just after eight. It was a couple of hours earlier than he usually called Jack, but he knew Jack should be up.

Probably he was doing his morning exercise routine. Even with the return to conditioning in the team facilities, players were still doing a lot of it at home because of restrictions on how many people could be in the gym at one time.

Call me when you get this, Bitty texted. He hoped Jack would call before he showered and dressed and had breakfast.

It’s important, Bitty added.

There was nothing more he could do, so he went back to the kitchen and got butter from the fridge. He could leave a couple of sticks to soften for cookies and cube the rest into flour for a pie crust.

MooMaw brought her coffee cup in from the porch. 

“Baking already? What did Jack say?”

“I didn’t talk to Jack,” Bitty said, concentrating on measuring salt into the flour.

“You’re going to move back with your mother and daddy then?” MooMaw asked. “That’s what you’re trying to work yourself up to do?”

“What? No,” Bitty said, starting on the butter. “Jack didn’t answer. Probably working out. But if he doesn’t want me, I’ll try Shitty and Lardo. If things are opening up again, it’s time for me to move on.”

“Move on from here?”

“From Georgia, with my life, all of it,” Bitty said.

“You don’t have to leave,” MooMaw said. “I can tell Connie I don’t have room.”

“Nah,” Bitty said. “She needs a place. And she wants to stay here. Even if I didn’t have somewhere to go, I could take the sofa. And I have a room with Mama and Coach.”

“Have you talked to them?” MooMaw asked.

Bitty shook his head. “Not yet. I want to have a plan first.”

His phone buzzed on the table, he wiped his hands on a dish towel. 

“It’s Jack,” he said. “I’ll just go …”

“Front porch is open,” MooMaw said, picking up the bowl with the beginnings of his pie crust. “I’ll just stick this in the Frigidaire until you’re ready to get back to it.”

“Hey, Jack,” Bitty said, answering the call as he pushed the screen door open.

“Bittle?” Jack said. “Are you alright? Is your grandmother alright?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Bitty said. “I promise. It’s just, my Aunt Connie lost her job. The restaurant she managed in Atlanta announced it’s closing for good.”

“That’s too bad,” Jack said. “But -- and I don’t mean to be insensitive -- why did you need to call me at eight o’clock in the morning to tell me?”

“Because she called MooMaw last night and asked if she could move in here,” Bitty said. “When her lease is up at the end of the month.”

“Okay,” Jack said.

“And the guest room I’ve been sleeping in will become Aunt Connie’s room,” Bitty said. “And I know we talked about, well, me moving back north and maybe staying with you, but I thought that might be more of a ‘maybe someday’ kind of thing and not a ‘I need a place to stay next month’ kind of thing, and if it is that’s totally fine,” Bitty said. “I get it, we barely know each other, we’ve never met in person, and even if we like each other it’s way too much to ask with our relationship being what it is, if you can call it a relationship at all, and --”

“Bittle,” Jack said.

“Mama would be happy to have me back at home with her, and maybe Shitty and Lardo could help me find a place to share in Boston, and MooMaw said she’d tell Connie the room was taken if I wanted her to, but it’s the room Connie grew up in and after working through the whole shut-down, now the place closes because people aren’t coming back in droves? And she’s nearly 60, and she doesn’t know how she’s gonna find a new job --”

“Bittle.”

“Sorry,” Bitty said. “I’m rambling. I just wanted to know before Mama hears the news about Aunt Connie today. She’ll be thrilled about me coming home, and I want to stop that train before it starts if it’s not gonna happen..”

Jack was silent for a moment before saying, “Is that what you want, to stay in Georgia with your family?”

“Not really,” Bitty said. “I mean, maybe for a little while? Like a week or two? But not another three or four months. I’ve liked spending time with MooMaw, and my parents and I -- it’s gotten better, y’know? -- but I don’t think this is where I want to spend the rest of my life. But I know that’s my problem, not yours.”

“Do you not want to stay with me?” Jack said. “I’ve got plenty of room.”

“I know, sweetpea, but I don’t want to put you on the spot,” Bitty said. “I mean, this isn’t like an old-fashioned arranged marriage or something where the first time we lay eyes on each other is the first day we … you know.”

“Just because you stay here doesn’t mean we have to sleep together,” Jack said. “I have had houseguests before without that, eh?”

Bitty snickered in spite of himself.

“You don’t think it would be bad for us?” Bitty asked. “I mean, like us us, like making us hate each other because we’re stuck together, or making us put up with things we don’t like because we don’t want to cause problems?”

“I don’t know,” Jack said. “I’ve never lived with someone I was in a relationship with.”

“And we’d have to be careful anyway,” Bitty said. “Like, when I get there, I should stay in the guest room and stay away from you as much as possible for two weeks just in case I get exposed to this on the road. And -- wait. What did you say?”

“That I never lived with someone before?” Jack said. “Is that weird?”

“No, but, is that what we’ll be doing?” Bitty said. “Living together? I guess I was thinking more of an indefinite visit, until I can find a job and get a place.”

“If that’s what you want,” Jack said. “You’re welcome to my guest bedroom, I guess.”

“And your kitchen?” Bitty said. “I’ve been itching to bake with you for weeks now.”

“With me or with my kitchen?” Jack chirped. 

“Both?” Bitty said.

“You should know training camp starts July 1,” Jack said. “So I won’t be home that much. And once we start playing, I won’t be home until … I really don’t know when. So it won’t be so much that you’re staying with me as staying in my place.”

“Ugh, that’s true,” Bitty said. “Little old me, all alone in a luxury condo with top-of-the-line everything. It’ll be like the best house sitting job ever. I can take in the mail and water the plants.”

Jack chuckled.

“What makes you think I have plants?”

“You have one,” Bitty said. “I saw that ficus in your living room.”

“What makes you think it’s real?” Jack challenged.

“Uh … there was a dead leaf?”

“Was there?” 

Bitty could hear Jack walking through the condo.

“Shit, you’re right,” Jack said. “I usually have a service take care of the plants but they haven’t been coming because of the pandemic. They sent instructions … but I think I forgot to water last week.”

“See?” Bitty said. “I can make myself useful.”

“You don’t have to,” Jack said. “You’re welcome to come and stay as long as you want or need to. If things open up enough by then, I can get the plant lady to come back. But we don’t have to figure it out now.”

“No, now I just need to tell my parents that after moving home from college and more or less directly into MooMaw’s house, I’m going to move back to New England at the end of June to live with a man I’ve never met,” Bitty said. “It should go well.”

“Haha,” Jack said. “I’ll have to … is it okay if I tell the team? That you’re staying with me? They don’t have to know we’re anything besides friends. But it would be hard to keep it to myself, I think.”

“Of course,” Bitty said. “It’s your home, your team. Tell them as much as you want.”

“Thanks,” Jack said. “Good luck with your folks. Let me know how it goes. And Bittle …”

“Yeah?”

“I’m really looking forward to meeting you in person.”

“Me too,” Bitty said. “I mean, meeting you, not me.”

They ended the call with Jack laughing at Bitty’s joke. Bitty shook his head and looked at the phone for a moment before heading back to the kitchen and resuming his work on the dough.

“Well?” MooMaw asked.

“Looks like I’m headed to Providence in a couple of weeks,” Bitty said. “So this is gonna be a peach pie for Mama.”

Bitty was waiting on MooMaw’s porch with the pie, a pitcher of sweet tea and a container of peanut butter cookies boxed up for coach when his mother came with the groceries. She left the bags on the step, and Bitty got up to carry them inside. 

“Go ahead and get yourself  some pie and tea,” he said. “There’s something I want to talk to you about.”

He left the bags in the kitchen with MooMaw, and came back outside, cutting his own slice of pie before taking a seat on the other side of the porch from his mother.

“Is this about Aunt Connie?” his mother said. “She called this morning. She was asking if I thought we could put together some kind of order business for baked goods and jams and such, maybe sell at farmer’s markets and things. I said you’d have to be part of it too, of course. Because then we could make more, and cover more markets every weekend.”

“No,” Bitty said. “Well, sort of. It’s about Aunt Connie moving back here, at least.”

“You know your room’s been ready for you,” his mother said. “And I know you’re a grown man and need your privacy. Your father and I won’t be nosy.”

What did they think Bitty would be doing in his room? By himself? Because he honestly didn’t know any other gay men in Madison, although there must be some, just based on numbers. And anything else … well, he;d been a teenager already hadn’t he?

He wished he weren’t blushing to the roots of his hair when he said, “No, Mother. It’s not about moving home. Or, I guess, it’s about not moving home.”

His mother looked confused.

“It’s going to be difficult to find a place around here just now, and you’d need a job …”

“I know,” Bitty said. “I will need a job, and that will be hard to find around here. You knew I was planning to go back north.”

“But, where --”

“With Jack,” Bitty said. “He invited me.”

“You can’t impose on a man you barely know for goodness knows how long,” his mother said, like it was obvious. “Even if he says it’s okay, people get tired of having guests.”

“I know, Mama, but it won’t be like that,” Bitty said, hoping very much that he was right. “By the time I get there, he’ll be in training camp, and then he’ll be away for the playoffs the NHL is doing this year, keeping all the teams in the same place, so won’t even be there for a lot of the time. And he’s got a spare room and bathroom and everything.”

“Now, Dicky,” his mother said. “I know you really like Jack, from the time you’ve spent on the computer with him, and he does seem taken with you, but  that’s not real life. I’d hate for you to go so far only to be disappointed. Maybe you can visit him for a week and come home?”

“No, ma’am,” Bitty said. “Traveling isn’t such a great idea right now -- I’m planning to isolate myself for a couple of weeks once I get there just in case -- and anyway, I wasn’t asking permission. I was sharing my plans.”

#omgcheckplease #omg check please #zimbits #my fic

[strawberriestyles]

Chapter 3

(Banner by sweet sunshine @harry-nofookingway-styles​)

Harry X OFC (AU)

Sequel to Brutality: In which Melody and Harry must relearn how to navigate one another among a flurry of changes.

Read previous parts here.

Author’s note: I am so overwhelmed by the amount of people saying that they missed this story and these characters! I’m so touched that you all love my babies as much as I do. I hope you like the rest of the story just as much! Please, don’t forget to show your love!! Enjoy. Xx

Deep sleep had been elusive. Melody had gotten a total of seven hours, but it wasn’t straight through. It was fractioned and split into two hours here, three hours there, with an hour and a half of staring up at the ceiling in between. And Sean hadn’t failed to notice.

“Harder,” he ordered, lifting his punching mitts up again and rounding the ring.

Melody huffed air between her teeth as she pressed toward him again, throwing quick hits into his righthand mitt. She danced on the balls of her feet, circling him as he turned, pushed a pad forward. She swung, a wide hook that forced his arm backward. Sean rebounded and smacked her ear with his mitt.

“On the defense, Rhoden! What are you doing?”

Melody dropped her gloves as she stepped back, away from him. She swiped at sweat that was dripping into her eye with the back of her forearm. Her breath came in pants. She remembered when she refused to exercise, anything but yoga, where she could set her own pace and stretch out her muscles instead of coiling them up.

“I’m sorry,” she muttered. “I’m wasting your time.”

“You’re not wasting anyone’s time but your own.” Sean stepped into the corner of the ring and waved at her. “Go ahead. Take a break.”

Melody nodded gratefully at him. She peeled the velcro on her right glove apart and shook it off onto the floor, reaching for her water bottle, where it waited just inside the ropes.

They were at the gym, early enough that the people working out were mostly parents. Middle-aged moms getting in some cardio before work, dads watching their figures and pulling weights far too heavy for them, barely avoiding strained backs. There were a few younger men, though. Probably college students high on pre-workout. They had wandering eyes, but neither Melody nor Sean paid them any mind.

This was the time of day they preferred, and this was the place. A little gym in a hidden corner of the city’s south side, where they didn’t have to worry about any of Goodman’s regular boxers interrupting and heckling them. Early enough that most of the annoying gym-goers were either sleeping or otherwise occupied. They tended to stay away from the warehouse unless it was time for a match or they had set up some training with another team.

Melody gulped down another mouthful of water and stared out onto the street. The pavement reflected back the rising sun. Her eyes felt tired, and not the adrenaline of her training or the brightness of the morning outside or the rock music playing over the gym’s speakers was helping to wake her up.

“He’s being unfair, Sean,” she finally said, when she couldn’t stop thinking about the way that Harry had reacted the day before. "Like I liked that he fought? He did it because he had to, and I’m doing the same thing.”

“You know I agree with you, Melody. He’s a strange dude. Never know half of what goes on in his head, why he makes the decisions he makes.”

“So, what do I do? Just wait until he gets over it? What if he doesn’t?”

Sean sighed. He peeled his mitts off and gestured with his head toward the floor of the gym. “Let’s do some bag work.”

Melody slid out from the ring, beneath the ropes, grabbing her discarded glove before she followed Sean to an unused boxing bag. She tossed her water bottle into Sean’s waiting hand, examining the thick gauze and tape coating her knuckles. Then she slid her fingers back into her glove and pulled the velcro tightly around her wrist.

“One-two-threes,” Sean said, squirting some of her water into his own mouth. “Go.”

Melody peeled her lips back from her teeth and arranged her feet. She sucked in a heavy breath and then began her punches. Right. Right, left. Right, left, right. Short hisses of air between her teeth with each hit. The bag swung before her and she took a swift step clockwise before beginning another round.

“He is stubborn,” Sean finally answered when she began her next set. He watched her form and studied the twist of her torso. “And he almost seems angrier than he was before. Not that I blame him. He likes to keep moving and he hates hospitals, and now he’s stuck immobile inside of one. Switch sides.”

Melody slowly shifted herself, right foot forward, left shoulder back. She repeated her deep breath and then began again. Left. Left, right. Left, right, left. The even sound of glove against bag helped to calm her mind, even as she began to sweat again.

Harry had begun her training, even if he had never meant it to turn into this. Brief instructions on form and little spars between the two of them, when she wore a padded helmet and he only tapped her with his own gloves. It had only been fun, then. Just a way for him to break up the monotony of his own training. But Sean had been appreciative of what she already knew when he started training her himself. And over time she had seen the appeal of the sport, the outlet of steam, the way that it really wasn’t just testosterone-fueled fighting, but a game of the mind.

She finished a single set before she paused to speak. “Well that’s not his fault, and it’s not mine, and it’s not yours. He can redirect his anger, if you ask me.” She began her next one-two-three as she waited for a response.

Sean leaned his back against the wall of mirrors on her right. He nodded slowly. “I think he knows all that. But Colton’s not around for him to direct his anger, so…”

Melody let her arms fall to her sides, licking her dry lips. She shook a stray chunk of hair back from her forehead. She hated hearing that name aloud, hated the face it called to mind, and the terror that came with it, and the months that had passed so painstakingly slow at the work of his hands.

“One more set on each side,” Sean ordered, pulling her from her own head, “and then the speed bag."

Melody completed her sets quickly and gave Sean another grateful nod when he rewarded her with a long sip from her water bottle. She tore the gloves off her hands as the two of them made their way to the smaller bags. Sean had to lower one for her, as he always did.

“Forward, down,” he instructed her, although she knew what she was doing by this point.

Melody dropped her gloves at her feet and began a steady beat against the bag, twisting her hands in circles, keeping them up and in front of her face. First the knuckles of her right fist, then the bottom of it, then the same with her left fist. She found the sounds of the bag’s chain soothing, meditative, but she was still finding it hard to focus. Sweat was dripping down her bare torso by now. She had learned early on that t-shirts were suffocating when you were working so hard.

“I was gonna go back to see him today, but I think you should go alone,” Sean eventually said.

She paused and glanced at him, letting the bag twist around and around, slowing. “Why?”

“He’s calmer around you.”

She scoffed, picking up her hits again, faster this time, and harder. Sean smiled softly beside her.

“I’m not lying.”

“You should’ve seen him right after he saw my face yesterday, Sean. He was yelling in the elevator. It echoed. That’s not calm.”

“Maybe not,” agreed Sean, “but on the whole he’s less aggressive.”

Melody sighed and dropped her hands again. She ran her fingertips through her damp hair, tucking the loose strands back as best she could. “I think he’s still mad at me. No matter what he says. There’s no way he’s over something that had him saying we were done, not when he feels like there were only a few days between that and him waking up in the hospital. I’ve had months to process that, but he hasn’t.”

“Well, he doesn’t wanna talk about it, right? If he wants to, he’ll tell you.” Sean patted her sweaty shoulder and lifted her gloves off of the ground. “That’s good for today. Why don’t you go and try to sweet talk some sense into him? A little kiss probably wouldn’t hurt.”

Melody rolled her eyes as she took her gear from him. But she was eager to get packed up and showered, and hoped that she found Harry in a better mood today.

***

When Melody stepped into Harry’s room, her tread was so light it was as if she were avoiding land mines. She found him watching television. The image was so foreign. He didn’t even own one in his apartment, and many times she’d had to do a lot of convincing just to get him to watch a film with her, but she supposed that laying in bed all day with no company could get rather boring.

“Hey, there,” she greeted cautiously. She hadn’t bothered with the makeup today. Harry already knew the bruise was there and Vanessa was familiar with her wounds. Besides, somehow, it was already beginning to yellow around the edges. She was a quick healer.

Harry turned his head toward her and was silent as she approached him, but she didn’t see the anger in his eyes that she’d grown so wary of. They were observant instead, almost calculating. That was perhaps more unnerving.

Melody relaxed back into her familiar chair and parted the wet locks of her hair with her fingers. She was avoiding a conversation, she knew. And Harry didn’t seem all too eager to speak, either. He was watching the T.V. again. Some crime program. But she couldn’t stay silent forever.

“I want to apologize again,” she told him, forcing her voice above the mutter that it was tending toward. “I shouldn’t have lied to you. You’re not stupid, Harry. And we were gonna have to talk about this at some point, but I was hoping I’d have some more time to, you know, prepare myself.”

Because the months I had weren’t enough.

His eyes lowered to her face, slowly, lazily. She liked looking at him, even when he didn’t seem so enthralled with her. His face was starting to round back out. Stubble was beginning to peak out around his mouth, above his lip. They’d shaved for him while he was unconscious, because it was easier to keep his face clean and because it felt more like Harry to Melody. She supposed that he didn’t want the extra attention now. But the facial hair wasn’t long, and he still looked like his usual self, like the Harry who went weeks between shaves because it grew so slowly. She hadn’t let them cut the hair on his head, though, even to keep it flush with the parts that were growing back in. He looked ridiculous but she didn’t think he’d like that, letting them cut his hair when it wasn’t absolutely necessary, when he wasn’t there to make the decision himself. Now, he looked a bit like a doll that a child had butchered.

“Why’re yeh starin’ at me like that?”

Melody’s gaze snapped back to his eyes. They were dull, trapped inside this building without anything more natural than the fluorescent bulbs burning above them.

“You’re not answering,” she replied.

“Yeh didn’ ask a question.”

She let out a snort. “Do I have to?”

Harry frowned. He reached toward her, his fingers outstretched, and she was so surprised that it took her a moment before leaning forward. His fingertips brushed along the lower part of her cheek, slipping her hair back from her face, and then settled just at the edge of her bruise. He was gentle, barely a flutter against her skin, but every spot her touched flared up, and she shivered.

“Got yeh good.”

Melody swallowed against the lump rising in her throat. It had been a long time since he’d touched her like this. And all too soon it was gone.

“I don’ like this,” Harry said, his voice hardened as his hand fell away from her skin. “Are yeh fightin’ guys?”

“No, I—”

There was the sound of a gunshot. Probably just a sound effect applied to the T.V. show. But to Melody it made no difference. The sound painted her vision red with blood. Her hands were covered with it. She felt a profound ache in her chest and an unpleasant chill down her spine, sudden tears collecting behind her closed eyelids.

“Melody?” someone was saying. “Mel?”

Her eyes opened to find Harry still laying in front of her. His brows were drawn together, his fingers tight on the edge of the mattress, just in front of her knee. She blinked once, twice. Her breathing was labored, like she’d only just finished her training with Sean.

“Can you—” she murmured, nearly choking as she swallowed around the lump rising in her throat, “can you turn the T.V. off?”

Harry lifted the remote and pressed the power button without a moment’s thought. He watched her avoid his eyes. That wasn’t like her at all.

“What was that?” he asked softly.

“Nothing.” Melody shook her head. “I’m fine.”

“Melody.” Harry drew his hand back to his side. “Yeh just apologized to me for lyin’, so stop it. Yeh’re not fine. ‘M sittin’ right here.”

She opened her mouth to say something, anything, but felt herself only stutter out something unintelligible. Harry watched her struggle, drop her face into her hands, and fall completely silent. He glanced back toward the blank T.V. screen and his own face reflected back at him. A minute ticked by in silence, and then everything clicked together in the same moment.

“Yeh were there?” he whispered. He shifted himself up against the pillows positioned behind him and his frown deepened.

Melody nodded, drawing her hands back down her face and letting out a lungful of air that sounded almost painfully sharp.

“No one tells me shit around here,” Harry muttered. He didn’t understand how such an important detail had slipped through the cracks when the story of the shot to his head was explained.

“It’s not something I like to talk about.”

“I’ll bet.” He watched her fiddling with her own fingers, the tendrils of her damp hair falling forward into her face. “What were yeh doin’ there?”

“Bringing back your...” Melody swallowed around her own words. “Bringing back your things.”

“Should’ve just kept ‘em. Christ, Mel.” He drew in an agitated breath. “What happened?”

“I don’t want to talk about it, Harry,” she spoke. She sounded fierce, resolved, and he didn’t challenge her.

“Okay.”

Melody looked up from her lap for the first time in quite a few minutes. She reached for his hand, where it was tucked into his side, and he turned the palm upward for her. Her fingers were clammy as they gripped at him.

“Nothing has changed with me,” she finally said, after she’d thumbed at his scarred knuckles. There was a fierce ache in her chest that spurred on her words. It had been weeks and they’d yet to discuss anything about their relationship, but the way he’d just touched her and the memory of his things packed away in boxes almost forced her to broach the subject. She didn’t think she could wait in suspense any longer.

“Everythin’s changed with yeh,” Harry countered. “Down to your hair color.”

Melody shook her head. She didn’t smile at Harry’s attempt for a joke, and he barely lifted his lips, anyway.

“That’s not what I mean,” Melody said as the fingertips of her free hand traced up the dark lines of his tattoos. She sighed and leaned forward, settling her cheek atop the back of his hand, clasped in hers. His hands had never been soft, always hard and calloused, but gentle with her. She pressed her lips to the space between his thumb and his pointer finger.

“I love you, Harry.” She closed her eyes as one of his knuckles brushed the skin at the corner of her lips. “I meant it the first time I said it and I mean it now.”

“I know that,” Harry replied after a short pause. He heaved out a deep breath and slipped his hand from hers. She felt herself deflate until that hand wrapped around the side of her neck, his fingertips at the back of her skull, and he tugged on her. She lifted her face from her own hand and the mattress, let him pull her toward him, until she was rising out of her chair, chest against his, and he was pressing his lips to her forehead, just below her hairline.

Melody choked back the sob that rose into her mouth. She dug her fingers into the fabric of his hospital gown and settled into the crook of his neck, his breath pouring down the side of her face, sweet and warm as honeyed tea.

“I missed you,” she whispered against the skin just above his collarbone.

“I know,” he said again. He held her against him, feeling her breaths begin to even, letting her press herself as tightly to his skin as she needed. It felt like the most natural thing in the world, just holding her. “I know, Mel."

Chapter 4

#harry styles #harry styles writing #harry styles series #harry styles drabble #harry styles blurb #harry styles imagine #harry styles x ofc #boxer!harry #boxer!au #harry styles fan fiction #harry styles fanfic #harry styles fic #harry styles fluff #harry styles angst

[benkouji726]

Written for alexweek2020. Sequel to “Settled”, but can also be read as one-off. ...I think.

Anyways, “Settled” is based on meet ugly prompt 2: I bought a house three months ago but I’m finally moving in and discover you’ve been squatting because you’re homeless.

Spoiler alert: they ended up living together! And none of them are aliens! Jesse died in the previous work, so all is well...ish.

Home can be a person

They’d been living together for a month now, and Alex still knew nothing about Michael Guerin.

OK that wasn’t entirely true. He knew plenty. Because one, he was a military man, his livelihood depended on his observation skills. And two, their schedules somehow synced perfectly, and after a week of awkwardly bumping each other in the kitchen and waiting turns to use the bathroom, it was simply easier if they just worked out a systematic plan to build their lives around each other, which led to divided chores, respected bathroom routines and shared meals. And when two men spent that much time together, they had no choice but to have conversations, which were really not that hard, because they clicked like magnets and they actually enjoyed spending time together.

So Alex knew plenty. Both from his observations and their conversations. But it was not like Guerin volunteered personal informations, and even he did, it was always surface stuff, so it didn’t really count. Like he knew Guerin was a mechanic, who was really good at his job. So good that he even opened his own auto shop the second year into the business. And based on what Alex saw, money was not exactly an issue for him. Which frankly didn’t match up with his squatting life style, not to mention he owned a perfectly functional airstream, but that topic was always brushed aside.

Alex also knew Guerin had two siblings, who moved away a year ago. They were both married, and apparently lived nearly enough that they did a weekly get together. Guerin would join them via FaceTime, they would laugh and talk, and Guerin seemed so happy when they did this, which did not explain why he was always a little sad when they were done. But again, not to be talked about.

Sometimes Alex would be impressed by Guerin’s topic changing skills. Granted, his go-to move was more often than not flirtation, but it worked like a charm on Alex, so whatever got the job done, right? And rationally, Alex knew he should be grateful, because Guerin was a surprisingly pleasant roommate. He was good company, he wasn’t nosy, he did VERY good repair work around the house, his cooking skills were better than Alex’s, and he slowly became the reason why Alex was looking forward to going back home after a day’s work. And truth be told, Alex wasn’t exactly an open book himself, so he should just respect Guerin’s boundaries and enjoy their easygoing companionship.

But he just couldn’t.

34 days into their co-living arrangement, Guerin came home, visibly upset. It was Alex’s day to make dinner. So he ignored Guerin at first to finish the lasagna. But when he was putting together a cob salad, he heard Guerin throw his tool box on to the floor, and caused a loud clang.

Guerin NEVER threw his tool box.

“What’s got into you today?” OK that was a little harsh. But in his defense, Alex was kind of tired of asking “are you ok” at that point, because he always got a “just dandy” and a too-big-to-be-genuine smile in reply.

Guerin shut down immediately, threw on a well-practiced smirk, and said: “Nothing. Unless you are up for the job?”

And just like that, Alex snapped.

He got up, got his keys, and left the house.

It was when he sat in his car, had no idea where he’d go, he realized that he didn’t even bring his wallet and phone, which was just stupid.

The whole thing was stupid.

He knew he had no right to feel angry and hurt. They didn’t have that kind of relationship. Guerin didn’t owe him anything.

But he had felt their connection the first time they’d met, and it was there ever since. He thought Guerin felt it too.

Apparently he was wrong.

He came back two hours later, because he needed that time to work out an apology and also to learn not to be this naive again. When he got home, Guerin was sitting at the kitchen table, seemingly lost in his thoughts, lasagna in front of him, cold and forgotten.

“Hey, I’m sorry about earlier, it was really none of my busi...” He began but was cut by Guerin mid-sentence.

“I didn’t eat”.

“...OK? Were u not hungry or was the lasagna that bad?”

Guerin looked up at him then. His eyes big, voice raw.

“I didn’t eat because it felt wrong.”

He looked back down at the lasagna.

“After you left, I was angry at first. Because fuck you, you know? I don’t owe you anything.”

“Yes, Guerin, I know, I was trying to apologize...”

Guerin continued as if not heard him at all.

“And then I got up to help me some food, man’s gotta eat, and frankly, lasagna is like, the only food you can make right. So I got myself a plate, and I sat down. Normally at that point, you would begin to nag me about eating some salad or drinking some water first, but then I looked up, and you were just, not there.”

He looked up again. All open and bare.

“So yeah, maybe it was not your business, but it was also wrong of me to assume I didn’t want it to be.”

They stared at each other. Both at lost what to say next. Eventually, Alex sat across the table, reached out, and squeezed Guerin’s hand.

“You reheat the lasagna, I’ll finish making the salad. And we’ll eat. OK? I’m starving.”

“Yeah, you didn’t even bring your wallet. I mean, dramatic much?”

“Shut up, Guerin.”

They didn’t talk about why Guerin was upset that night, but it was OK.

—————————

Things got better after that. They talked now, not just making conversation. Alex learned that Guerin had been in the system for a long time. His siblings, Max and Isobel, were actually not related to him. They had been just best friends in group homes, until they were adopted by the Evans, while Guerin went through many terrible foster families. They were united at the age of 15, when Guerin’s new foster home brought him to Roswell, and they had been inseparable ever since.

“That was, until Max decided to marry someone in LA, and moved there. And then Isobel’s husband also got a job in LA, they moved soon after. So it was just the same old me, again.”

They were at the fire pit in front of Guerin’s airstream, which he still wasn’t using, except sometimes he would go in there and do God knows what, they still didn’t reach the subject why he had been squatting yet. Alex suspected it had something to do with his issues with his siblings moving away, like the bitterness in his voice now had.

“Well, you’re literally sitting next to me now, so not exactly the same, you know?”

Guerin startled, and looked over at Alex with something like hope mixed with fear in his eyes. Alex stared right back, because at this point, he really wasn’t interested in pretending that they didn’t mean something to each other. And he hoped Guerin would drop the “I’m a lone wolf and I don’t care” act too, at least when he was with him.

Whatever Guerin saw on his face, seemed to satisfy him. He smiled, the kind of smile that reached his heart and soul, and said,

“You trying to hold my hand now, private?”

And they did.

—————————

Alex woke up in screaming. Next thing he knew, he was in Guerin’s arms.

He didn’t remember the dream. But he could easily guess the content. It was always the same. Bomb, blood, cries, he looked down, his leg was gone. Sometimes his father was there, sometimes he wasn’t. Either way, he felt his presence.

Normally, after he woke up from such a dream, he would do some breath exercise, get up, get some water, and didn’t even try to sleep again. But tonight, Guerin was right there, humming something like a lullaby, and rubbing soothing circles on his back. He didn’t say anything, or ask how he was doing, just held him and gently rocked him.

At some point, maybe ten minutes, maybe an hour later, they lied down, together on Alex’s bed. Guerin’s hand slowly reached down, until he touched his stump. He rubbed it once, twice, and then he just stayed there.

Alex fell sleep.

——————————

Friday movie nights became some sort of tradition between them. They would finish their work, meet at the house, grab something to eat, and then drive to the drive-in theatre. Alex liked those nights, hell, he cherished those nights.

So he was very irritated when some shitty client just didn’t know what it meant to demand something WITHIN REASON, and he had to cancel their movie night via a short text. He was even more irritated when said client walked out in the last minute, so his previous work was totally wasted. Plus his new prosthetic was giving him trouble all day. Safe to say he was not in the greatest mood.

When he got home though, he was met by Guerin’s soft smile and homemade dinner. By the time they finished eating, he felt more or less like human again. Then Guerin gave him a dessert, told him to rest a bit on the sofa, and disappeared in the bathroom.

Ten minutes later, he pulled Alex into the bathroom, where he already drew a bath for Alex.

He even lit some candles.

All of a sudden, Alex wanted to cry, except he hadn’t cried in ten years.

So he let out a shaky breath, buried himself in Guerin’s arms, and asked a stupid question.

“Why did you do all this?”

Guerin held him, shifted somewhat awkwardly, and said in a quiet voice.

“You spelled ‘bail’ wrong.”

Of all the answers, THAT was not what Alex expected.

“What?”

“Your text. I guess you meant to say you had to bail on our movie night. But you spelled it ‘ball’. Auto correct or something. And you never spelled wrong. So I figured, you must be exhausted.”

At that, Alex just HAD to kiss him.

—————————

They visited Greg together on a Saturday morning.

At the drive home, Alex was awfully quiet.

Michael didn’t ask. He made coffee. He fetched a blanket. He sat beside Alex on the sofa, and began to read his monthly mechanic magazine.

Alex talked before he decided he wanted to.

“My father was a piece of shit. And out of my three brothers, Greg is the only decent one. But when we were kids, he didn’t know how to protect me or stand up for me, when my father beat the shit out of me.”

Michael dropped his magazine, and silently held his hand. And Alex decided he wanted to keep talking.

“I wanted to make music. He sent me to war. Frankly, war wasn’t even a worse choice than my so called home. It just wasn’t a better choice either.”

“I never felt I belong anywhere, not at home. Not at war. I bought the house because Greg asked me to, because he was the only one who reminded me a shred of the ‘home’ concept. But today, seeing him with his family, I realized, he is my family, but he is not home.”

“I still don’t belong.”

He hadn’t cried for ten years. He didn’t want to begin now.

Expect the hands wiping his tears were so gentle, he couldn’t seem to stop.

“I was offered a great job opportunity in New York, when I finished my study at UNM. But four years apart from Max and Isobel were tough enough that I decided to ditch that and move back.”

“I never felt I belonged, too, what with the fucked up system and shitty foster homes, except when I was with them. So I clung to them, a little bit desperately. When they moved away, I felt betrayed, left out and abandoned. I didn’t want to live in my airstream anymore because it felt like a fantasy I built, just to fool myself into thinking I could have followed them anywhere in it, because they were my harbor. But then they were gone, so I decided I wasn’t supposed to settle in anywhere, and that’s when I began to squat in people’s not lived in houses. Because they are just like me, you know, abandoned.”

“Until you invited me to live with you.”

They held each other a long time after that.

—————————

The email came on a Wednesday morning, and Michael was on the plane that very night to LA, because Liz was going into labor and Michael would become an uncle.

He asked Alex to come with him, but he was caught up at work so he just couldn’t make it.

They called each other every day though, Michael showed him so many baby pictures he even dreamed about it one night. He was vibrating joyful energy and Alex was happy for him.

Then on the fourth night since he was gone, he called Alex, hesitation evident in his voice.

“Liz pulled some strings at her university. And they offered me a job here.” He said, without so much as a hello.

Alex felt the world shook for a moment. Then he blinked, and the house seemed the same, intact, but somehow much quieter, and larger.

“I’m happy for you.”

An exhale.

“You are happy for me.” Michael repeated, slowly.

Alex shut his eyes. He thought of all the times Michael looked at the photos of the three of them, and all the times he seemed to be lost after he ended their phone calls, and he opened his eyes again.

“They are your family.” He said simply.

Another exhale.

“Yeah, they are.”

Silence.

After three minutes of nothing else, Alex hung up.

——————————

Michael came back on Tuesday afternoon.

Alex had not been sleeping well, or eating properly, so at first he thought he might be dreaming or something.

But there he was, clearly not been sleeping well, or eating properly himself, eyes glaring with fond anger.

“You are a dumbass, you know? You’re just gonna give me up like that?”

Alex refused to back down.

“It’s not giving up. You always wanted a family, a home. I don’t wanna stand between you and your opportunity of that.”

Michael shook his head, sighed, and pulled Alex into his arms.

“You still don’t understand, do you? They are my family, true. But YOU are my home.”

And there, stood in his embrace, Alex finally understood.

#alexweek2020 #day 1: home can be a person #malex #malex fic #my fic #alex manes #michael guerin

[pixiegrl]

You are the Sunlight, Shine on to Me

Luke and Ashton get the happy ending they deserve

I guess this is the last part of "Bloodied Up in a Bar Fight." At the very least, it's the sequel to part 3. I thought the boys deserved a soft ending, and I thought @lifewasradical deserved something nice and soft because she’s Amanda and I love her. So here you go babe, please enjoy!

On ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29341515

Luke’s sitting at his kitchen table, drinking his coffee and scrolling through his phone when Ashton comes downstairs. Usually, Ashton’s awake first, already gone for his morning run and come back, making breakfast and laughing when Luke stumbles down the stairs, squinting and confused. Today though, Luke woke up with the sun, wide eyed and happy. He’d sat outside on the deck chairs until it got too warm. He’s been sitting inside for a while, drinking his coffee and humming quietly, waiting for Ashton. 

Ashton crosses the room, leaning down to press a kiss to the top of Luke’s head. Luke preens, tilting his face up and earning a quick peck on the lips from Ashton. 

“Morning sweetheart,” he says, smiling sleepily down at Luke. Luke grins back. 

“Morning darling. Sleep well?” Luke asks, following Ashton into the kitchen. 

“Always when you’re there,” Ashton says, banging around the kitchen looking for a pot and some bowls. Luke knows he’s trying to make oatmeal, an Ashton standard meal. 

It’s been nice, relearning each other of the last few weeks. Luke’s happy he never worked up the courage to tell his mum or Michael and Calum about the breakup. He’s sure no one would have approved of them getting back together, of trying again. He’s sure they all guessed something was wrong, but neither Luke or Ashton have offered any explanation. Instead, they’ve taken the time to sit down and talk to each other. They’ve broken through whatever layers of insecurity and fear they’d had before. It’s been nice, having everything out in the open, feeling like they’re re-learning each other. It’s helped relieve whatever anxieties and fears they both have, the insecurities they clearly never talked about. 

Instead, they’ve fallen into their old routines. They alternate whose house they spend their days at and they eat dinner together most nights and now Tuesdays and Fridays are date nights. Luke reads it for what it is, a compromise to be more open about their relationship in exchange for giving Ashton time to be comfortable coming out. Luke has enjoyed it, being able to go out with Ashton and hold his hand, steal kisses when he wants, without Ashton shying away. 

“Are you going to help me or just stand there and look pretty?” Ashton teases, bumping his hip against Luke’s on his way to grab the oatmeal from the cabinet, fills the pot with it and some water. Luke laughs, snorting at the end of it. 

“I don’t know. Maybe I want to fulfill my role as trophy boyfriend,” Luke says. He goes into the fridge, pulling out an apple, before going to the cabinet to grab some raisins and honey. Ashton dances around Luke, grabbing mugs and coffee to make some for himself, more for Luke. 

It’s comfortable, standing in the kitchen, working around each other. Ashton keeps stirring the oatmeal, watching it and the coffee machine as it heats up. Luke slices up the apple, dicing it into smaller pieces to put into the oatmeal. 

“Which did you pick?” Ashton asks, gesturing to the apple. 

“Honeycrisp.” 

“Should have picked red delicious.” 

“You’re just lucky it wasn’t a green apple. You know those are my favorite.” 

“Heathen. I can’t believe you enjoy anything that tart.” 

“Well, get used to it. I’m going to let my apples infest the whole fridge if we ever live together. Get my sour gummies everywhere.”

“You’re lucky you’re cute and I love you,” Ashton says. Luke stops mid-cut, leaning over to press a kiss to Ashton’s cheek. He’s rewarded when Ashton turns his head, presses a kiss to Luke’s lips. Luke smiles, content with getting to be here with Ashton, that they’ve had the chance to try again, save their relationship. It’s terribly sappy, but Luke doesn’t think he could love anyone the way he loves Ashton, years of friendship blending into romantic love. 

“Well I love you, even if you wake me up at the crack of dawn for walks,” Luke chimes. 

“You and Petunia need fresh air and exercise,” Ashton chides. Luke rolls his eyes, dumping his knife into the sink now that the apples all cut up. 

“Rude,” Luke teases 

“Just telling you the truth. Walks are good.” 

“After breakfast?” 

“If you insist,” Ashton says. Luke giggles, grabbing their mugs and pouring out the coffee when it dings. He mixes the vanilla creamer into his coffee, taking a sip. Ashton grabs his own mug of black coffee, sipping it lightly. 

Luke sighs, happy and content. He gets close to Ashton, dropping his head to his shoulder and nuzzling his cheek against the skin. He drops an arm around Ashton’s hip, squeezing lightly, watching as Ashton keeps stirring. 

“I want to,” Ashton says, not taking his eyes off the oatmeal he’s stirring. Luke looks at Ashton in confusion. 

“Want to what?” 

“Come out. I keep thinking about our future and I don’t know what it could be like in 10 years. None of us know, but right now, getting to stand here and make breakfast, knowing we’re going to get to sit and have breakfast together, I don’t want to ever lose this. I don’t want to keep going home and leaving you. I want to wake up and know this is my home, our home. I’m not ready for marriage, but I’m ready for the first step. I don’t want to be without you again. You’re as much of my rock as I am yours.” 

“Ashton,” Luke says, pulling back to look at him in shock and awe. 

“Let me finish. I had a whole speech planned and if I don’t get it out now, I’m going to forget it all,” he says, looking at Luke. Luke nods, putting his mug down to grab onto Ashton’s arm, squeezing. Ashton smiles, turning down the heat to turn and face Luke. 

“What else is there?” 

“I want to move in with you and I know part of that entails telling the world about us. And I’m ready. You’re right, there is a fine line between privacy and hiding myself and you. I don’t want to hide our love. I don’t want to invite everyone into our personal lives, but I want to tell people. I want to hold your hand in interviews and talk about how you’re the worst morning person, but you make the best coffee. I want to be able to kiss you when we go on dates without worrying that some tabloid will leak our relationship everywhere. I want to just be with you. I want to love you openly and publicly. You’re my boyfriend, the love of my life. I almost lost you once. I don’t to be without ever again,” Ashton says, reaching out for Luke and taking his hand. 

Luke’s tearing up, eyes watering as he feels them start to run down his cheeks. He locks his fingers with Ashton’s, looks down at their hands. He imagines what it would be like to wake up every day to Ashton, knowing that he’s never leaving. He allows himself to imagine what it would be like to openly talk about Ashton, post about him, show the world how much he loves Ashton. He allows himself to feel the warmth in his chest thinking about it, to picture their lives together.

“I want that too. I love you. I don’t want to ever stop loving you,” Luke whispers, nodding. Ashton beams, sunshine in his smile as his dimples show. Luke smiles back, uses his other hand to pull Ashton into a soft kiss.

“Breakfast is gonna burn,” Ashton mumbles. Luke huffs.

“Trust you to ruin an intimate moment being practical,” Luke teases. Ashton rolls his eyes, turning back to the pot, stirring the oatmeal before it starts to burn.

“First we eat, then we can talk about things,” he says. Luke nods, reaching over to squeeze Ashton’s shoulder, kiss his temple, feels the warmth in his chest at the suggestion of talking, of a conversation, of something more.

They double post their photos the next day, after they’ve had a chance to talk it over with Michael and Calum. They go back and forth about whether they need to tell their management or their team before Michael tells them to screw it and do what makes them happy. Ashton posts one of Luke in the light of the early morning, laughing and covering his face with his hand, holding his coffee mug in his other. It’s clear from the hickies on Luke’s neck, Ashton’s shirt that he’s wearing, what the photo is. Luke posts one of Ashton he’s had saved for a while, curled up in bed, covers pulled up enough that the only thing anyone can see is his curls and his eyes, Petunia pressed against his back as she sleeps away. The only caption either of them post is a little heart. It’s enough, the opening they need to letting the world know about them. In the months to come, they’ll post something more detailed, post photos about their relationship. They’ll talk about each other in interviews, listen to Michael and Calum tease them in public. They’ll build a life around the fine line between privacy and being open about who they are. But for now, sitting in the kitchen together, talking about what they both want, talking about being open, it’s enough. 

#5 seconds of summer #lashton #luke hemmings #ashton irwin #the ending to bloodied up in a bar fight the boys deserve #soft morning fluff #domestic sweetness #theyre just having a good time in love #my writing