#period and maybe even first half of the third period. we just need all this for the comeback narrative <33

[martyrbat]

#leafs lb #waiting for them to pull a penguins and just tie it in the last 15 seconds of the third <3 dont worry about the first and second #period and maybe even first half of the third period. we just need all this for the comeback narrative <33 #i love being in denial i love being the ignorer i love going lalalala everything is fine :) #im even going to hoot & holler at willy hitting the post later like he has for 5 games #because its all part of the narrative to the road to the cup <3 #<- made this and typed that as auston literally scored so. yay ❤️

[panlight]

The other thing about the Renesmee storyline that bothers me (other than it not really making sense that only half of the vampire species retains fertility, or that it rubs motherhood in Esme and Rosalie's face, or I just don't vibe with supernatural pregnancy/creepily smart children stories) is that it sort of invalidates all the cool stuff SM did with found families.

The Cullens are LITERALLY a found family--Carlisle found Edward, Esme and Rosalie; Rosalie found Emmett; Alice found Jasper and then then Cullens; Edward found Bella. They aren't actually related at all, but they created this bond, this family, and that's so interesting to me how they come from different places, different time periods, and still make this work. Fascinating!

And the wolfpack, too! Now some of them are actually related, but generally as like second or third cousins. I don't know about you, but I only really know my first cousins, and even then not all that well. I had a second cousin in my homeroom in high school and even though we had the same last name I didn't know her at all. We just shared great-grandparents that died before we were born. So to me the pack also has that found family vibe. Sam as the pack dad despite being so young himself. Emily as the pack mom, making snacks and giving the boys a place to hang out at her house. The brotherly joking and bickering and fighting between all the guys. You can tell in these scenes that SM grew up with brothers. I did, too, and there are moments that really capture that, even though other than Seth and Leah, none of them are actually siblings.

But then she throws in Renesmee and it sort of feels like, "well, found family is good enough for the others, but Edward and Bella need a REAL family." Esme "makes do with substitutes" but E/B get a REAL child, and that just did not sit well with me. And in the movies Edward even has LINES that reflect that vibe, when he's standing with Alice and Jasper as the wolves attack in BD pt1 and says like "I won't let them hurt my family;" like Alice and Jasper themselves aren't also his family. Or in BD Pt2 when he tells Bella, "You've given me something to fight for: a family." Again, like he hasn't had a family all this time. I get that when you become a spouse and parent your definition of family can change but it still just felt kind of like a slap in the face considering we spent all this time with the other characters and they have all risked their lives so this Edward/Bella/Nessie family can even exist. Including the shifters!! And maybe she didn't mean anything by it, but because Nessie is the only biological child in the Cullen family is does come off that it's superior to the other kinds of bonds somehow.

I don't know, it just sort of feels like biological family is elevated above the found families. For example, in the books, Renesmee doesn't actually call them Aunt Alice and Uncle Jasper like in the movie, she only calls them Alice and Jasper. Charlie gets to be Grandpa, but Alice and Jasper aren't Aunt and Uncle.

And I really liked the found family stuff, so this "REAL family now" vibe was . . . not my favorite.

#anti-breaking dawn

[formosusiniquis]

when you're fifteen

Even as he hands over the platter of chocolate chip miracles he makes, Steve sighs. It's a full bodied affair that makes Eddie nervous on instinct. "We need to talk about Mike."

It is and isn't a surprise.

Steve Harrington/Eddie Munson; Steve Harrington & Mike Wheeler WC: 4044 | Rated T | Tags/Themes: Good Babysitter Steve, Period Atypical Depictions of DnD, HoH!Steve, Disabled!Eddie Ao3

Eddie prided himself on his ability to manage a table. A forever DM, four years into a lifetime sentence, he can keep a story on track and, more importantly, keep tempers in check for hours at a time. 

He kept track of a thousand little details across notebooks, binders, and just trapped in his own brain. He knew everything about his NPCs, the world, his player’s characters, and the things that drove his players nuts. He had plans, backup plans, and vague ideas of shit he could do if things went completely and totally off the rails despite all of those plans. That was one of the things he held fast on his tongue the first time he failed senior year. Of course he didn’t pass. He’d taken on the mantle of Dungeon Master. He had to put together a story that took into account: Jeff’s high stakes backstory with the missing mother and bounty on his head, Gareth’s need to flirt with anything age appropriate that had a pulse, and Joey’s tactical mind when it comes to battle. Wasn’t it enough that he was going to class, he had to do shit at home about it too?

He didn’t like saying it. He liked to bitch about it a lot, actually. Eddie wasn’t really sure what he’d do with himself if he wasn’t The DM. It was like a core part of his identity.

It made the current situation he was in more world rocking than he really wanted to deal with.

He liked to think, if he couldn’t feel the remaining muscles in his side screaming in agony because he was sitting wrong -- or for too long or both -- and if his lower back wasn’t seizing and spasming for the same or maybe a brand new reason it had decided to come up with today, that he’d be able to manage this table just as well as he always had. Eight really wasn’t that different from three.

Except that combat is impossible to manage, each round took forever and that’s when everyone was paying attention. Except that there hasn’t been a satisfying story moment for Jeffrey the Jovial or Dustin’s Sir Rathington in the last four sessions. Except that Erica has been scribbling something in her notebook that probably wasn’t campaign notes since she hadn’t called him on the plot hole he caught session planning a month ago and hasn’t been able to fix -- and is more likely to have something to do with the way he noticed her looking at Uhura and Chapel when she was watching Star Trek reruns with Steve.

Except that Mike has been screaming at Dustin and Lucas for the better part of five minutes and Eddie really isn’t sure how to fix it.

“The plan is stupid. Did you even spend more than ten seconds thinking about it or did you decide that Will could just roll another character and we could save the resources.”

“Will could roll another character. It's not the first time he's rolled another character.” Lucas points out for what might be the third time, Eddie’s lost count.

“This whole thing is about resources, Mike.” Dustin snaps, “We’ll all be rolling new characters if we go into this stupid fucking fight while Gareth has no spell slots, Lucas is down to three arrows, Joey’s already used his second wind, and half the party is below half health.”

“It doesn’t matter, if we don’t go into the fight now Will is going to turn into some bloodsucking vampire spawn.”

Eddie knows this is the point that he should grab the reins again. He should prompt one of them to make a decision, or better yet, take the decision away from them entirely. But there’s a numbness in his thigh that has somehow spread to his mouth; it’s different from the pain the rest of his body is in, not really better or worse, and just as distracting. 

The rest of the table is quiet, boredom and annoyance plain on their faces. But they’ve also stopped looking to him to fix the problem. That’s the worst thing the Upside Down took from him, he thinks, even as his body is radiating pain from places he used to be able to forget he had.

“Or maybe it’s a trap,” Lucas points out. And it should be, but Lucas is a far better tactician than Eddie who already knows he won’t want to deal with the work it would take to do that well. “Y’know since you made all your weak spots pretty clear to Lord Ellias.”

“Or,” Dustin drawls out with a Harrington’s level of bitch and ire, “we could trust Eddie to turn this into a fucking story moment.”

“You guys are both so full of shit, just-” Mike has his nose curled and lip snarled, Eddie can feel the breeze of the blade swinging down to deliver the death blow to this campaign and adventuring party.

“Alright time to take a break.” Steve claps his hands, an angel come from on high to save Eddie. “Get up, get a snack, move your feet. Give my dining room some time to air out before it smells like nerd forever.”

Mike turns the full weight of his aggression on to Steve, who hopefully has a damage immunity or advantage on saves at the very least otherwise this is looking like a short talk, “We can't just take a break. Do you not get what the stakes are here? We've got to save-”

“Save someone who will still be in danger in twenty minutes.” Steve steamrolls over Mike’s argument with an unaffected ease. Eddie can feel the mood of the table lift just a bit, now that they’re about to be rescued.

“You just don't get it.”

“I get that it's pretend.” In a pre-Vencapocalypse world that would have been enough to get Eddie fighting on Little Wheeler’s side, but much as DnD is still his life. Fuck, it is all just pretend. “Go take a lap.”

“Ugh why do we even come over here. We could do this at my house without washed up jocks interrupting us.” Mike says but he gets up. Storming off to god knows where in the monstrosity of Steve’s house. Will, quiet as he always seems to get when he’s the center of one of these drag outs, trails off after Mike with an eye roll at the other two sophomores and an apologetic shrug for Steve.

And Eddie has his table again. Quiet and still, waiting for him to say something. Like there’s even anything to say when his very own Deus Ex Machina is leaving the room without so much as a backward glance at the poor schmucks he’s saved. “Well,” he says with a clap of his hands, “My blood sugar is dropping, so I’m going to shove as many of those cookies I smelled earlier into my mouth as I can in twenty minutes.” Because as much as they weren’t looking to him before, they need the DM to break the spell of the table. That’s how the whole thing goes.

And they scatter once it breaks. Eddie’s original Hellfire boys stay at the table, their ease at the Harrington house has been hardwon and the argument has rekindled something nerdy and skittish in them. Erica has headed off to the corner of the house Steve has let her claim as her own, nose still buried in her notebook. He doesn’t know where Lucas and Dustin are, but wherever they’ve gone they aren’t around to watch him struggle to pull himself out of his throne with his cane. He should just give in and let Steve raise the seat, half the problem is that it sits too low -- but knowing that and being willing to admit it at any point other than when he’s in PT levels of misery from pulling himself up are very different things.

Steve has his back to the door again, by the time Eddie makes his way to the kitchen. He has a bizarre semi-awareness of his surroundings that can be hard to predict. Sometimes it’s freaky how Steve can call out Dustin or Erica from a different room with an almost parental ‘eyes in the back of his head’ sixth sense. Other times his own soulmate can get the drop on him, managing to get her arms wrapped around his middle before he even realizes they’re in the same room.

It’s better to slam his cane against the floor a couple times. To let Steve feel the vibrations through the floorboards with his sock feet, that way nobody has to get hurt or feel guilty for doing the hurting.

Getting to see Steve’s grin bloom across his face as he flips that famous hair and catches sight of Eddie isn’t so bad either.

Next to Steve, it’s safe to prop his cane against the counter. He can rest his hips against the sure, solid surface and relax in the presence of his boyfriend while the blood returns to his limbs and a new kind of discomfort settles in. A hand, warm and sudsy finds the back of his neck. A strong thumb digging into a knot that had been there since at least last week with an erotic precision.

“You’ve got to stop letting them keep you in that chair for so long.”

"If we take breaks we'll just be here longer."

He shrugs, pulling his other hand from the dish water to pull Eddie into a gentle hold. "So be here longer."

"You'd get sick of the fighting. I'd get sick of the fighting." Actually it was probably better not to remind Steve of that. "You know I really did want one of those famous Stevie Henderson cookies."

Even as he hands over the platter of chocolate chip miracles he makes, Steve sighs. It's a full bodied affair that makes Eddie nervous on instinct. "We need to talk about Mike."

It is and isn't a surprise. "I know the yelling is a lot, Sweetheart, I'm sorry. You don't have a migraine, do you? I can talk to him and make him chill out a bit." That last part is absolutely a lie; he doesn't think he could get Mike under control right now if he had a stun gun and half a pound of Argyle’s primo Cali weed.

Not that it matters Steve has on his scrunchy faced 'you're wrong about something,' look, Eddie just needs to give him the minute it'll take to get his thoughts together. "You know I love you right?"

“In this dimension and any others,” Eddie supplies.

Steve smiles, feather soft, and runs a soothing hand through Eddie's hair the way he always does right before he says something atrociously bitchy. "I turn my hearing aids off the second you all start playing. If I had to listen to your game three different times, three different ways I'd drive my car into a portal."

He keeps going the way he does when he's afraid he's been too mean and wants to try to soften his edges for general consumption, like Eddie hadn't fallen in love with him the first time he called Dusin a butthead. "This way you and Dust can still use me as a sounding board for your plots and theories and I don't have to listen to my favorite nerds try to remember if 5+7 is 11 or 12."

“So what’s?”

“I’m worried about him!” Steve insists. Eddie might pride himself on his ability to handle a table, but he knows Steve is proud of his way with the kids. His relationship with each of them is rich and distinct, the way he handles each of them unique.

But it’s Mike.

Something must cross his face. He can only call it something, because he’s honestly not sure what emotion he’s feeling other than headache and how many cookies can I eat before they start tasting like nausea. But something else must have been there that causes Steve to cross his arms and glare.

“Yeah, of course, you’re worried about him. We are worried about him. Why are we worried about him, other than worried about what an asshole he’s been lately?”

That was not the right thing to say either, Eddie’s really rolling straight ones today. Steve’s glare shutters even further closed, and seriously it’s Mike. The same kid who called Steve a washed up jock not ten minutes ago. Who takes every single offered opportunity, and even some that he makes himself, to bitch and glare at Hawkins own #1 babysitter and monster hunter. 

“He’s a teenager with more trauma than a ‘Nam vet. But even if he weren’t he’s not an asshole for being barely fifteen and not knowing when to shut the hell up. Do you remember the kind of shit you were saying back then?”

Big brother Steve has successfully landed a critical hit. Eddie does remember the kind of shit he used to say. Just like he knows Steve remembers the kind of shit he used to say. And they both remember the shit that they used to say to one another. How Eddie called Steve a braindead future Reganite who wouldn’t know good taste if it spit in his mouth. How Steve had called Eddie a tryhard that was so desperate to be different because that was the only way he could hide having nothing to offer.

“So we’re worried?”

“I just don’t want him to say something he can’t walk back because he forgot the thing he’s getting upset over is pretend.” He runs a finger down Eddie’s splayed hands. A tickling sensation he can feel down the path it traces from the back of his palm and down his middle finger and, in a phantom mirror, down his spine. “I know you get into your characters, or whatever, I’m sure this is bringing up a lot of memories but he’s going to regret lashing out if it means he pushes away Dustin or Lucas or one of the other guys.”

“I notice you left out Will.”

“Yeah well, Will is more likely to get hurt by something he says when lashing out while they aren’t playing exposure therapy the game. I mean seriously, you had to kidnap him? That’s where your, ‘Stevie, baby, what should I do with them this week? They decided to do something stupid,’ bitching and moaning landed you?”

Eddie doesn’t even really have time to let himself feel the fluttery, squishy feeling he wants to feel -- cause Steve does actually listen when they’ve got their feet tangled on the sofa together, each working on their own things -- before it’s getting smacked by down by the paladin of his heart. “No, no, that isn’t where I landed. I had a perfectly acceptable diplomacy mission prepared, with a back up fight that they were supposed to run away from. What do you want me to do, Sunshine? I gotta give the game some stakes. It’s not exactly fun for Will if he knows he’s indestructible.”

Maybe, he thinks, he should just stop talking today. Just cancel the rest of the session entirely. Will gets carried off by the vampire spawn, half dead and unsaveable, the party on its last legs, unable to agree on a course of action; and actually that’s where we’re gonna end things come back next week and hope Steve even lets us in the house after the screaming we’ve all done. Why? Because he can feel every joint in his body and every one of them is in pain. Because there’s been the dull throb of a low grade headache beating an even pulse in his temples since he woke up this morning. But mostly because every time he opens his stupid fucking mouth to talk Steve stops touching him, and that sucks absolute balls.

“I maybe had an idea,” Steve says. His voice dips and slides while he keeps his hands small, quiet, and close to his chest. Something Robin told him, and he’s now noticing, means Steve has thought about this idea a lot, long enough that he’s convinced himself it’s bad. Eddie’s noticed that even when these ideas aren’t phrased well, they’re never bad.

“I know it’s like rule number one: don’t split the party,” Steve can’t help but roll his eyes when he says it, an instinctive bit of brotherly mockery of Dustin, he would guess. “But what if you split the group a bit. Mike can go after Will, I’m sure Erica would be down to kill some vampires. She loves a chance to test drive her new feats and shit. Then Jeff and Dustin and whoever else can finish up that thing? With the missing girlfriend or whatever? And once that’s done they reunite to do whatever’s next on the list, save the kingdom.”

Eddie sits with that for a bit.

Impulsive is still his middle name, but sometime between being eaten alive by other dimensional hell creatures and getting a thousand and six tiny, itchy stitches removed he’s started giving things second and even third thoughts. Though in this case the second thoughts are less ‘is this a good idea’ and more ‘will Steve bend me over that solid oak dining table and critique my DM notes while he rails me.’

As his stomach swoops, his lower body twinges in a much less enjoyable way. Letting him know that now he’d been standing too long, or leaning against the counter the wrong way, or maybe something else entirely that made his legs tired of doing one of the few things they were made to do. 

Figures he finally lands a hot boyfriend and he's got chronic pain keeping him from getting his dick wet.

“If you’ve already got another idea-”

“No,” he rushes to assure Steve, who needs to stay confident in his own ideas for all kinds of reasons but right now mostly so he’ll be willing to play into this new fantasy of Eddie’s once his body is willing to cooperate with the standing and the bending it’s going to require. “No, it’s a fantastic idea. I’m plotting as we speak.” 

And that isn’t a total lie. Forever DM, he can think about all the fun ways the love of his life and reason he’s still living could degrade his current campaign -- An oath of vengeance paladin questing to save a lost love, isn’t that a little played out. Oh wow, rat swarms in a dungeon, they’re never gonna see that coming -- and figure out how to trick the group into thinking splitting the party was their own idea.

“How long,” he asks his resident child expert, “do you think it would take Will to roll up a new character?”

The smile that tips the corners of Steve’s face is the best part of his day. “Will always has an extra character rolled up with the rest of his stuff in his folder."

Things are slotting together in his head now, and as Steve's hands come around to do something magical in a spot on his back that probably has a name but mostly makes his legs feel like they should really belong to a baby deer.

“So Will…”

“Can convince Mike, and get a chance to try out the new thingy he built. He’s been waiting to talk to you about it.”

Eddie’s getting excited now, hands shaking in the good way. He doesn’t even care that his knee locks as he tries to bounce on his toes, just lets his hands get out the excited energy. “And the band can go do the story side plot shit I’ve been putting off…” 

“With Dustin,” Steve reminds, “cause he’ll want to go wherever there’s the best chance to stir up shit. You already know Erica is going to go where there’s a chance to prove she’s the best at fighting, Lucas too. Not the fighting thing. He’ll go to round out the group, and so his mom doesn’t have to worry about keeping track of one more thing on the family calendar.”

“You’re a genius, Sweetheart.” He snags Steve by the collar, ignoring his bitching that the two fingered pinch he’s got it in is going to stretch it out, and pulls him close. Pressing a kiss on the corner of his perfect boyfriend’s pleased little smile. “I gotta go talk to Will about this character.”

“Send Mike down when you do?”

He’s surprised when he gets no argument, barely gets acknowledgement, when he finds Will and Mike in the guest bathroom and separates them. Mike slips from the room with nothing but a backward glance at Will, who smiles supportively. Once he clears the room, it takes next to zero prompting to get Will to talk about his backup character. The ‘thingy’ he'd been working on a tricked out ranger build that's going to annihilate. 

There's something fresh, brightening, about Will's enthusiasm for the character that infects Eddie too. It gets him excited, for the first time since everyone arrived, to sit down around their over crowded table and play the hour of set up it's going to take to get the party ready to be split. 

And Will doesn't duck his head anymore when Eddie pushes at him and his DnD expertise, he just pushes back. Together they work out a couple tweaks that will make the build fit better in the party, flesh out a backstory that they can integrate even if it doesn't end up going anywhere, and it doesn't really feel like time passes at all. Until Sinclair is sticking his head through the door, surprise artfully hidden at who he finds, as he asks if they're ready to go.

Mike is conspicuously absent from the table when Eddie makes his way to it, and that won't do at all. He's not an asshole, he's just 15. Something like shame crawls up the back of his throat as Steve's reminder sounds in his head. He remembers 15 and the things he said but more than that, as he looks around the table, he remembers being the last to arrive at a hangout of people you're already worried hate you only to find them having a good time without you. 

Eddie has always prided himself on his ability to run a good session. "Stevie, gimme back our paladin, do I need to bring in a hostage negotiator."

A cookie held in one hand while the other smooths down the ruffled fringe of his bangs, Mike re-enters the dining room. The back of his Hellfire shirt is bunched and, if that weren't sign enough he'd been on the receiving end of a perfect Harrington hug, he looks settled. A smile tugging at his face that Eddie hadn't realized how much he missed, he looks boyish and happy and if Eddie didn't before he understands Steve's mission to keep these kids kids by whatever means necessary.

"Alright, now where were we?” He says once Mike is back in his seat beside Will, “Ah yes, you all watch in horror as the vampire spawn, hastened, dash away from you all with the unconscious, but still alive, body of Sir William the Wizened." Before anyone can restart the shouting, and he knows there will be shouting now that they’ve all had a chance to look over their notes and their character sheets, he barrels on. “From the hill behind you comes a shot. An arrow flies, thwip thwip. It slices between you all, before sinking into the back of one of the spawn at the back of the pack. He stumbles to the ground and the rest of the pack leave him to die.”

“We can interrogate him!” 

“Worry about who’s behind us, dude.”

He doesn’t let Mike or Dustin derail him, Eddie continues, “As you turn the hill behind you is nothing but mist. You all know the range of an elven bow, but whoever fired it is nowhere to be seen. You wait, breath held, as a figure all in black slowly approaches. You get the feeling you see him now only because he wants to be seen.

“Will, describe your new character for us!”

#steddie #steve and mike #mike wheeler #good babysitter steve harrington #hard of hearing steve harrington #disabled eddie munson #its the mikes not an asshole he's just a traumatized teenager fic #yknow the one no one was waiting for #for my tag readers will homebrewed a prototype gloomstalker #and the author borrowed the hardwon vampire arc from naddpod #my fic

[frazzledsoul]

So I find it interesting that in the last few years of the show we know almost nothing about how Rory processes the break-up with all three boyfriends.

After Dean dumps Rory for the third time because he realizes they have nothing in common anymore, I don't think we hear anything about him from her side other than telling her therapist that the affair was a bad idea (obviously). The last time we see Dean he's angry at Rory for wanting to move on from Stars Hollow and insisting to Luke that Lorelai will do the same for him and we... essentially never hear anything about him in the OS ever again. In AYITL, he's married, has a gazillion kids, seems emotionally stable for a change, and doesn't seem to resent Rory or idealize their relationship as much as she does. They've obviously run into each other from time to time and they're not bitter. What does Rory think about how all of that ended? I guess we'll never know, because ASP bizarrely thinks Dean was perfect. Whatever! Moving on.

Logan is even more of a question mark. Rory doesn't seem to take their breakup particularly hard, even though he blindsided her with a proposal and refused to accept any sort of compromise. Maybe she figured that their breakup was in some way inevitable as they went through this milestone and moved into adulthood? Who the fuck knows, because in AYITL she seems to be a complete commitmentphobe in every sense of the word (not just romantically) and they're having an affair that definitely looks like a relationship at times but invites no self-reflection from either of them. They don't talk about their relationship and both seem to have accepted they'll never have a real one again or move onto anything deeper and....lol, no one knows why? Do they love each other? Do they regret how things turned out? Would Logan be willing to leave his life behind and give it a go? Does Rory want a relationship with anyone, period? Does Rory even care about him as a person, since she seems to know absolutely nothing about his life and I'm not sure she....wants to? (Seriously. Compare how she interacts with Dean and Jess and seems genuinely interested in what's going on with them). I guess we'll never know any of this either.

Jess is a different scenario because Rory meets him again during the OS and we have an entire year and a half in which her demeanor towards him drastically changes. He leaves town and she's hurt, but claims to have moved on: during their two brief interactions in season 4, he avoids her, confesses his love for her on two separate occasions with zero context, and she's still so pissed at him she could spit nails in his direction and wants nothing to do with him...and runs into the arms of married Dean because she sees him as genuine and safe.

When Rory meets Jess in season 6, she's clearly not angry at him anymore: she's nervous, genuinely interested in his life, proud of his accomplishments, wants to spend time with him, gushes about how she always knew he could do something great because he was so smart and had so much potential. He gets into a fight with her boyfriend and her sympathies are absolutely towards him, not Logan.

Obviously it would be weird if she were still angry, but what changed, specifically? Is it because after her dalliance with Dean she's less inclined to judge him for how he hurt her? Did moving on with Logan (I don't think she ever really loved Dean again) help her finally process all that hurt and anger? Did Jess just obliterate all of her hurt feelings with his charm, maturity, and artfully arranged coiffure?

I guess it was a combination of all these things, but this is the first time in a long time that Rory shows him a lot of respect as a *person* as opposed to someone who frustrates her one minute and delights her the next. She doesn't have to spend her time defending him, because he doesn't need to be defended anymore. And not only is he the person to drag her out of that hole she's sinking in, she lets him.

Then we move onto the open house at Truncheon, where Rory....behaves badly, to put it mildly. I don't think she went there with malicious intentions. She was genuinely proud of Jess and wanted to see him and spend time with him. Still, it's got to be one hell of a blow, for her to show up on a night that was important to him, let him believe he still has a chance with her romantically and that she was single, and then to confess that she's still in love with the other guy and he's only a distraction. What stands out to me about that scene is that Jess flat out tells her that he doesn't deserve to be treated like that while Rory is in the middle of apologizing. While I think that romantically the door was closed for the time being after that incident, Jess doesn't appear to resent her or lash out, and Rory knows that SHE'S done wrong, that SHE hurt him, and she's sorry. She might not love him again like he wanted her to, but she cares about him, she respects him as a person, and she doesn't want to see him hurt. I don't think we have seen her have that attitude towards Jess for years and years.

Does she respect Logan as a person at this exact point in time? I would have to say no. She seems to feel zero guilt about running around on Logan, even if she can't bring herself to go further. She flat out says she's in love with him but he deserves to be hurt (ouch). She only grows tender towards him after he nearly dies. She might love him, but this relationship is not exactly bringing out the best in her.

Season 7 is a different story (I definitely think Rory respects that version of Logan) but since this is ASP's story, we have to return to her fatalism and her belief that Logan can never, ever change, because then he won't be able to ruin Rory's life and effectively crush all her hopes and dreams with his super sperm. Meanwhile, she clearly still respects Jess: not only is his advice the only advice she is willing to take, but she's clearly still involved with him on this writing project afterwards and as a member of her extended family. And shouldn't you, in the end, seek a partner you actually respect as a person, as well as love? Shouldn't you actually....like them?

#this has been in the drafts for a few days #rory gilmore #gilmore girls #jess mariano #logan huntzberger #dean forester

[olderthannetfic]

I don't know beans about traditional Chinese clothing and I'm not in any fandom where characters were hanfu, but I'm finding the conversation about it really interesting by analogy to something I am familiar with, Highland dress. I wear a kilt maybe about once a week, and the historical and cultural significance is important to me.

The full outfit one traditionally wears with a kilt has a gazillion pieces, and each pice has at least two names, was probably invented a few hundred years later than you think it was, and almost certainly is at the center of at least one political issue in the 18th or 19th century.

The thing you think of as a kilt is also called a small kilt, or a philabeg (a loan word from Gaelic, also spelled filibeg or phillibeg), and is technically half of the great kilt (aka philamor, also with spelling variations). It may or may not have been invented by an Englishman.

The Jacobite shirt is a recent invention. The wide belt with a huge buckle comes from military dress. Tartan is technically the name of the cloth, and a plaid is a sort of mini cloak you wear on your shoulder. Kilt pins only go through the top layer of fabric and don't pin the kilt together, and are a Victorian invention. Tartan patterns only gained close and official identities with specific clans or families or groups in the Victorian era. Some modern Tartans are under copyright and you need permission from the designer to weave or sell them, others are public domain and literally anyone can wear them, despite affiliation.

I could go on....

Or you can wear a kilt with stompy goth boots and a band tshirt, or with hiking boots and a polo shirt, that's fine too (and how I wear mine, more often than not).

It's not hard for me to see that hanfu is just as complex and has just as much historical and cultural significance as the traditional cultural clothing I'm more familiar with, and getting it wrong in a fic would look just as silly.

But you don't have to actually do this much research and know everything I know about Scottish history to write a character who wears a kilt, whether it's in a historical, present day, or fantasy setting.

You probably want to have an OK grasp of what Highland dress means to your character and why they wear it, and you want to acutally know what a kilt even is in the first place (it's a little more specific than just a skirt), but that's all you really need.

If a Chinese fanfic author wanted to write Outlander fic, and didn't want to do the in depth research to get the clothing terminology exactly right for the time period, that's fine. Just put the pleats in back and call it a kilt instead of a skirt and that's good enough.

-- Same anon who just sent the ask about Highland dress. I can see where the "it's not a robe" anons are coming from. To me, the word "robe" covers a huge variety of unrelated garments, including bathrobes and wizard robes and hanfu and kimono and togas and the sack-like things graduates wear and the things Medieval European kings wear. But if someone called a great kilt a robe, I think I'd have a fit. Yes, just like the other examples, it's a large flowing piece of cloth worn around the body in a certain style, but it's more specific than that. I most likely feel this way because I'm more familiar with great kilts than I am with the other examples. The others are all just different kinds of robes to me, but a great kilt is something specific that I know a lot about. If you described a great kilt to someone who didn't know anything about it as a type of robe, I would consider that accurate, but if you said of an Outlander character "he put on his robe", I would be like "excuse me???? that's a great kilt". That's probably how the "hanfu ≠ robe" anons are thinking.

For me, as a novelist, the calculation is simple:

When I'm writing in third person limited (as I usually do), how would the character be thinking about this clothing? That's what the argument boils down to.

On one side, we have "This word is more Chinese, so it feels more like it's honoring that these are Chinese canons".

On the other side, we have the equivalent of "Your Scottish guy from 1350 is not going around thinking 'He was clad in Scottish dress' about his bros who are just wearing normal clothing."

--

No one is confused about the two sides of the argument. They just disagree about whether 'hanfu' is anachronistic and exoticizing.

[theminecraftbee]

actually, genuinely important fanfic writing advice that deserves its own post: FOR THE LOVE OF GOD IGNORE THE AO3 HIT COUNTER. it’s a useless metric and it WILL drive you insane. while i think it tries to count logged-in users only once, that count resets every 24 hours-ish. so like, if you’re like me, and post a new chapter every 24 hours on your longfic? yeah stuffed bird has like, triple the hits of black box, but maybe half-to-a-third of the kudos. and that’s not because way less people who read the fic liked it, it’s because it is more than one chapter so their hits counted more than once. sometimes one person may have even counted as much as sixteen times as much if they read it as i posted. because stuffed bird has sixteen chapters, and black box has one.

like, generally ignore the numbers anyway, how many kudos you get does not determine your worth or anything and doesn’t even really measure how good your fic is (we’ve all read that popular fic in number of kudos that we personally think sucks right like we’ve all done that). however, like, i get that seeing your number go up feels good, and that it can feel like you can look at a fic and see how many of your hits left kudos to decide how good it is or whatever, but like. that’s not how that works, the hit counter doesn’t only count a person once, it counts an IP address once per twenty-four hours. plus if there are web scrapers, bots, people who use ao3 extensions that hit the API a lot... what i’m saying is that the hits are meaningless.

like don’t attach yourself to the numbers in general. that way lies madness. attach yourself to a few friends who like to yell at you about how they like your writing and like, someone you like a lot who likes what you wrote. that’s way more sustainable as a “i need attention and validation” tool than the numbers. because like, it is OKAY to want validation! it is OKAY to need confirmation people have read what you wrote! you aren’t a bad person if you’re writing at least in part for other people! just remember it’s for yourself first and that the numbers are bullshit.

but if you find yourself focusing on the numbers anyway... ignore the fucking hit counter because you will never make sense of it because it doesn’t actually measure what you think it should (how many people have read my fic) it measures an arbitrary number of times that some IP address has hit that webpage and resets periodically. so toss it out, you know?

#i hear tell there are extensions that hide the hit counter and that may help some people? #i actually don't mind talking numbers. numbers are cool i like seeing fanfic stats for discussion purposes #but focusing too much on them will drive you mad so you know. attach your validation to the few people you can get shouting instead #anyway this is a ramble because i discovered recently that people DO pay attention to their hits and i'm like. oh no

[bbobpul]

hell of an oddball

NOTE. fifth email 🤧 reblog, like, and follow @medyowriter

PAIRING. hoshi x you

GENRE. angst, hurt/comfort

WARNINGS. language alluding to death, mention of unnamed chronic illness

list of emails i can't send

masterlist

if you want to be a part of this series' taglist, like this post

from. [email protected]

to. [email protected]

subject. emails i can't send 5/13

hoshi kwon, thank you

the drought was the very worst. even before you became a part of my life, it felt as though every gentle breeze that graced my face carried an unseen layer of grime, imperceptible to my eyes. i felt as if every person i passed by could somehow discern my age and recognize the lack of achievement by the time i reached 27.

high school marked a period when i held a specific disdain for you. you were the peculiar individual who boldly challenged teachers to dance, as if you were close to their age. you were an unusual presence, appearing only at special school events. but despite my hatred, i couldn't resist sneaking glances in your direction. maybe because it was your unyielding nonconformity, causing disruption every semester we shared. you were a hell of an oddball.

then, more than a decade later, i saw you again on my third day in switzerland.

it was like meeting an entirely different person with the same face and name as you. you changed a lot, or should i say, you had matured.

honestly, when you greeted me, i half-expected you to challenge me to dance in the middle of zurich's streets. jokes aside, you had evolved far beyond the quirky high school kid i once knew. you had become a psychologist, a revelation that took me by surprise, but you had always been unpredictable.

you mentioned your plans to embark on a global exploration journey, ticking off every location on your bucket list before your special day. however, the nature of that special day remained unclear until now.

we explored every corner of the country, often without a specific destination in mind. during our journey, we learned more about each other. you learned that i quit my job because it starts to feel unfulfilling and you were the first person to congratulate me for doing so. to my astonishment, i discovered that, despite your profession as a psychologist, you had defied your parents' protest to build your own dance studio.

we openly shared the changes that had unfolded in our lives over the past decade, a time during which we hadn't crossed paths. it felt as though i had known you for two decades, even though it had only been two weeks.

throughout our trip, i had been your designated driver since you still hadn't learned to drive. however, on our final day in switzerland, you made an unusual request, asking me to drive you to a specific place - dignitas house.

and in that moment, everything became clear.

the drive to dignitas house was marked by an eerie silence. you decided to break it, revealing your chronic illness that has been giving you hell. that was the moment i knew.

just hours before your scheduled passing, i had been holding your hand, begging you to come home with me. i couldn't summon any more tears, and i didn't want to be selfish, so i simply stayed there by your side. in the end, i went home alone.

hoshi, you truly are a hell of an oddball.

you needed company, and i'm grateful to have been the one to provide it.

so, from the depths of my heart, thank you.

those days in switzerland were a great realization that life just happens, just like that, and it's inevitable.

 

thank you for spending two weeks in switzerland with me. in those two weeks, we slowly let go of all the hurdles in our lives, and by morning, gone was any trace of blues, and we could, after the long run, say that we were finally clean.

sincerely,

your travel buddy

TAGLIST. @matchahyuck @minhui896 @hongmingoo @strawberryshortcakes-blog @lleercy @wonwooz1 @mhlsymlysn

#Spotify #seventeen x reader #seventeen scenarios #seventeen angst #seventeen fic #seventeen fluff #seventeen x you #hoshi x reader #hoshi x you #hoshi angst #soonyoung x reader #soonyoung x you #soonyoung angst #bbobpul #svt hoshi

[notafraidofredyellowandblue]

Jung Wild Grenzenlos (2022) - Paul Landers (with translation)

ARD/MDR documentary from 2022 about the 1990's era with Paul Landers, with an attempt at translation by me 😊.

Paul:

The 90's to me where the good old days in a sense that things evolved that one didn't know before. Musical directions emerged that didn't exist before. Youth movements that didn't exist. All of a sudden there was Grunge. Cool shit! Nirvana I heard on the radio and thought: Man what kind of good music is that! And one thought it would continue like that forever, and now looking back, one knows that is was a beautiful phase really, of change and of innocence and freshness.

There was this euphoria and i remember that it had a some anarchic traits, because the cops in the East could leave us, they weren't responsible for us anymore and the West cops didn't know us and didn't really know how to deal with the East-people and because of that there was a little Fool's freedom. Was a really lovely time.

<at a clip about the band Think about Mutation> 'Think about Mutation' initially were even ahead of us. They already had the principle of sequencer, machines and guitars. They already discovered that before us. At a concert we were pretty impressed by them in a musical way.

West alcohol i thought was really good, all the various variaties opened a whole new dimension.

Voice-over:

Maybe that Paul Landers pretty soon would be on stage with the band Rammstein. Forged from the wild growth of the Post reunification period, they practised at the East Berliner Knaack club and initially only play half full shows. But that changes quickly: German lyric, celebrated teutonics, Stage fire: the media foams of anger.

Paul:

The claim really was that we only do what we like, without looking in any specific direction, just "Lets go, we want to make trouble and we want to be extreme". We didn't care whether anybody liked it, at all.

VO:

Then the flame ignites, soon they fill every stadium all over the world. Six east-guys become the biggest band in the world. With thanks to the 90's.

Paul:

Rammstein is clearly a 90's band, but visually and musically. Ofcourse we think, we move, we mirror the sign of the time, but we are a 90's band, definitely.

VO:

Bobo, alias Christiane Hebold, steers the chorus of Engel

Bobo:

We were friends really. Then the idea was born for me to come in the studio and try out a few things as background. Paul sang the first parts of Engel to me and i thought "Sounds abit like 'Silly'" and he said "'Silly' is cool, sing it like that".

Paul:

The state-supported bands had a similar experience as the 'Ost-schrippen' 1) for the first time they weren't needed.

VO:

In the year 1991 almost a third of East people were unemployed. Especially women and men over 40 could step down.

Paul:

My father was at the Academy of Science, and in the West there already was an Acadamy of Science, so they threw him out right away, whoop!, with one swipe. My mother too, whoop! Both in the party, for them initially it wasn't that great.

VO:

Paul Landers at the time plays with Feeling B, and the band creates a funny little song from the desolate situation. "Ich such' die DDR" (I'm looking for the GDR) becomes a hit in the scene in 1993. Many want to forgive the old regime and crawl back in the warm nest.

Paul:

'Ich such die DDR' was a joke, because somehow it was funny, Whoop! the GDR, the country i was born in, is gone. Daft at first, but also interesting. A country, Whoop! nothing left. And an ambassador really has to pack his bags because his country is gone. He can go home. Somehow we thought it an interesting theme.

VO:

Feeling B didn't find the GDR again, and because of that, are soon history.

Paul:

Feeling B's motive was to mess around a bit, be a bit cheeky, explore the East limits, those were very narrow, so pretty easy to explore, and when those were gone, at first i felt dumb. The main reason for our musical existance was gone somehow. It was all a bit...it felt stale, like an old beer.

In the east i liked the east, and in the west i like the west. Because of this i don't have 'Ostalgie' 2) in a sense like the others may have because maybe they noticed that is was pretty great looking back, and the West wasn't as gold as they thought it was. For that reason i never went to a 'Ostalgie' party.

---

1) 'Ost-schrippen' are a kind of breadroll that was very familiar in GDR bakeries, but were quickly replaced by the treats from western bakeries (there are bakeries now that sell them again)

2) 'Ostalgie' is a wordplay that is often used, made of 'Ost' (the East) and 'Nostalgie' (Nostalgia), it describes a longing for East Germany when things in the West didn't turn out as fabulous as the seemed from East perspective before East and West Germany were reunified in 1989

#jung wild grenzenlos #paul talking #paul interview 2022 #rammstein #paul landers

[mylittlediarys-stuff]

Bite Back Part 6

It had been a week since Amaka got her powers. The one thing she can say about it is actually pretty cool.

She could walk on walls, she didn’t need to use her glasses, she could actually open up jars (Dick tights them way too much), she was able to cut her mile time in half, she was lowkey starting to love the fangs, her reflex came in handy since she was clumsy, she could shoot webs out her hand which allowed her to grab stuff across her bedroom, and she had this six senses thing that told her something bad was going to happen. She called it spider-sense.

This whole thing got her thinking she could make a good hero? A hero Bruce would be proud of? A hero that even Damian would be jealous of?

“What are you thinking about?” A voice said.

She was soon knocked out of her head and back into reality, 1st period AP biology. She had the class with Ram and Francesca ( she picked up that everyone can Francesca Frankie). She became friends with the duo right after the field trip.

She didn’t know if the due considered her friends, she only talked to them during class and waved at them in the hallway. Sometimes she would talk to them after school when Alfred was stuck in traffic.

“Nothing, I’m just tired,” Amaka said. “Didn’t sleep enough.”

“Same thing here. Wait did you hear about this-” Frankie said. It was another thing Amak picked up about Ram and Frankie. Their conversation moved fast.

One of them always changed the topic in less than a second which is confusing sometimes. They also liked to talk when the teacher is talking.

“Ram and Francesca!” Mrs. Rosemary yelled. “You two lunch detention, for talking in class. After multiple warnings.”

They also got in trouble with Mrs. Rosemary a lot.

“Come on Kamila, this is the third time you sent us to lunch detention, this month,” Ram said. “Take it easy.”

“Did you just call me Kamila, you don’t call your teacher by her first name.” Mrs. Rosemary took a long breath. “Ram, meet me outside.”

“He always has to make things worse for himself.” Frankie giggled. “Watch him get another referral”

“Amaka, can you stay after class?” Mrs. Rosemary yelled. “I have something I need to discuss with you.”

“What did you do, Miss Goody two shoes?” Ram asked.

“I don’t know,” she sat there thinking. “Maybe it was the assignment I turned in but it was 30 seconds late.”

“This is why I called you Miss Goody two shoes,” Ram said.

Actually, what did I do? I agree with Ram saying to Miss Goody two shoes because I'm actually an amazing stud-

The bell rang and with that, all the students left including her two friends who ran to the lunch line.

Amaka being asked to stay after class was one of her worst fears. She slowly approached Mrs. Rosemary, hoping for something to happen. Like telling her it was a mistake and she was good to go.

If I’m in trouble, what would Bruce think?

“Amaka, we need to discuss your friends of choice.”

Oh, I’m not in trouble. But discussing my friends seems worse, I guess.

“I don’t want to do this but Ram and Frankie aren’t the best choice for friends.” Rosemary took a deep breath in. “They seem pretty nice kids most of the time but they can be troublemakers. Nothing good will come out of being their friend.”

-

The girl somehow made it to lunch.

As usual, she had a homemade lunch provided by her favorite butler. A sandwich, orange slices, a bag of sour cream and onion chips, and a small apple juice.

Amaka had the same lunch routine, make her way to the door to the library, then she would sit down and eat her sandwich first, then would start doing any homework she had, eat her orange slices, then drink her juice, lastly, she spent the last 10 minutes of lunch going to the bathroom than using her phone.

But it was different today. She spent most of the lunch thinking about what her teacher said about her friends. Not talking to Ram and Frankie would mean she would have no one to talk to. They were literally the only people she talked to even if it was just for one period. Amaka decided it was a good time just to relax and bite and stop thinking about her friends.

She decided to pick up her sandwich, and the moment she took a bite out of her sandwich, her brother appeared.

Damian Wanye, the blood son.

It was four words she could use to describe the boy: smart, arrogant, rude, and violent.

Emphasize the violet part. She was pretty sure the boys got into at least 3 fights on school grounds this year and they haven't even finished the first semester. Amaka didn’t know if she should pretend not to notice him or give him a small wave. He was with his friends.

He is my brother, I should try to be polite.

So the girl summoned all her strength to wave at him.

He saw me and continued walking.

He made eye contact with me and continued walking.

He continued walking.

He is her brother but he didn’t stop but continued walking.

He won’t give me the time of daylight but gives it to his fake friends who only talk to him because of the fact Bruce is his dad.

She didn’t even realize that tears started to come out and made her sandwich wet.

Notes: Low key not the best chapter I wrote but not the best, sorry guys. Amaka had her power for a week so that means 2 more weeks until we get to her hero phase that properly be in a few more chapters.

#batsis x batfam #spidersona #into the spider verse #alfred pennyworth #bruce wayne x daughter!reader #batsis

[ronearoundblindly]

Whattt I just read the Mr and Mrs Smith thing and I loved it it was so frkn good!! love the movie too . It made me think of Tony and Peppers dynamic so if you'll like an au could we get the girl Friday thing where Stevie is more of an idiot than usual, they are pretty smart as individuals but they both share one brain cell when they're together still she puts out all his fires I think it'll be nice to have someone do that for Steve as opposed to Steve always doing that for ppl.

CEO!Steve x assistant!reader (see series)

This got way longer than I intended, but it took everything in me to minimize this to a one-shot (well that f***ing escalated! It's a three-parter now). 😂 Warnings for zero editing and drinking. Non-powered, modern AU btw. This part is ~2.5k

Eighty-Third Time's the Charm (1 of 3 yeah, yeah, it's 4 + a 5pt follow up now, haha, joke's on me): WORK

Steve’s been the logistic coordinator for Stark Industries since Tony took over for Howard. Howard hired Steve to acquire and transport materials for his early projects, and Steve’s own business grew from there. He now handles most of the further distributors for Stark Tech across the globe, and you’re his secretary.

Assistant.

Right hand.

Ok, well, maybe both of Steve’s hands and his mouth because his brain is already doing ninety things at any given moment. He needs a lot of help, and that takes time. Unreasonably lengthy amounts of time that can (and do frequently) span more than the average working and waking day.

You’re happy to do it. You love the work. It’s a challenge in quantity, not quality, and most of the men (because it is almost entirely men) who you deal with are happy to do as they are told when you smile and make them feel heard.

Really, the only challenge is to smile that much in person and on video calls. You never thought you’d be so excited to handle something by email every now and again.

Trip #83 with Steve Rogers takes you both three days overnight to a big city not far from where you grew up. You even have a few school friends who live in town, and you’ve made very tentative plans to see an old high school flame if the schedule permits, which it just barely seems to as the clock inches past 6:37.

Those 7 o’clock drinks can’t pour themselves fast enough.

In your hotel room, you’ve just shed the professional pant suit for light, breezy dress (something both easy to wear and easy to pack) and are in the process of typing out a confirmation of the restaurant when the call waiting comes up.

Steve.

“Hey, where is the contract for Sauters’?”

“We confirmed it all with them before the flight here, boss. Why—“

“I want the language changed to reflect payment before they take possession. They’re delinquent again. I’m not gonna allow them to keep profiting off of our efficiency while they sit with a thumb up their butts.”

“Sir, it really would be more impactful if you just said asses. I don’t think your mum is going to hunt you down for that.”

“Absolutely not. Ok, room 1512, bring the copy and patch in legal.”

“Wait, boss, I—“

The boop boop boop lets you know you’ve been hung up on, and you’re about to pass the feeling on to cute Jimmy from fourth period senior english. Damn. You rewrite the text and send your apologies.

Steve’s all in a flourish, head run amuck with little things to change here and there in the 26-page agreement. It all takes another three and a half hours. He had room service delivered, has poured you both a splash of something from the mini bar, and finally, finally sits down and looks at you.

“What is that,” he blurts.

It takes a moment to figure out what he means.

“A dress, sir. I…I was…I’d made plans for drinks with a friend.”

“Here?”

“I grew up about an hour away, yeah.”

He swirls his drink around, not admitting—though it’s painfully clear—that he had no idea you weren’t from New York. He looks at his watch for the first time all day.

“Ah, I suppose apologies are in order for…” He waits for his bait to catch.

“Jim,” you slowly add. “Don’t worry. I let him know the instant you called. I’ve met you. I knew how this would go.”

How much of this scotch did you sip all at once? You don’t normally talk to Steve—Mr. Rogers— like that, but he seems good and chastised for a moment, draining his tumblr in one go and returning to the bar.

“Well, I can’t replace Jim—“ he spikes the name with sharp tone you’ve never heard before “—but I can offer you a drink here.” His gaze, once it finds yours after dragging up your legs, is expectant and intent. It’s the first time he’s ever waited for an answer from you that he didn’t already know before asking.

It’s also the first time you aren’t quite sure you understand what Steve is asking. Eighty-three trips in and countless hours with the man, and this is the least prepared you’ve ever felt.

“Already had mine, sir.” You set your empty glass down on the small table between you. “We have a long day tomorrow, or rather, I do, but I’ll be sure to inform you when the Sauters are settled.”

It’s just instinct to smooth the front of your dress when you stand, but the rake of Steve’s eyes forced down you by the move completely throws you.

“I’m sorry you wasted an outfit,” he adds, quietly, too low and deep to not sharply flame a heat that sparks out of nowhere in your gut.

“Right.” You gather up your things. “No great loss. It’ll keep. If that’ll be all, boss?”

When your eyes return across the room, Steve’s standing there with an empty little bottle still tilted over his glass. He’s just staring, lost in thought about god-knows-what.

“Get some sleep,” he mutters absently.

“Of course.”

You pour your own drink from your room’s mini bar and take a long bath. You’ve been up since 5am in order to get you and Mr. Rogers to the airport in time. That’s what you blame your runaway thoughts on. You do everything for that man. You know practically everything about that man. You know that he hasn’t gone on any sort of social date in at least seven months (a fact even his mother calls to remind you of), and you know that Tony takes him out to gentleman’s clubs and has women serve them at all their joint business dealings.

You have literally sat beside Pepper Potts and joked about this while watching Tony get a lap dance and Steve chat up a waitress. Why your mind still entertains those thoughts after all you know is beyond human understanding, and after a day like today, you can hardly categorize yourself as human.

You need the rest for sure.

You’re already back on the phone by breakfast time, consuming strong tea and a croissant bite-by-bite while the American Capsules’ legal discusses the changes with SauterCorp’s legal.

Line-by-fucking-line.

You knew this would happen. It’s why you told them to start early. Of course, the team members you are on the phone with are different ones from last night because those folks worked late and are off work to make up for the overtime. You’re breathing in the smell of your drink with closed eyes like it’ll mainline the caffeine up your sinuses to your brain.

When you open your eyes, Steve’s pulling out the chair in front of you, ordering his own breakfast and motioning for a fresh pot of tea. He says nothing while you work.

Plates of food arrive and Steve reads the paper, glancing up every so often when you write a note to yourself about a follow-up after the call. After a while, he pushes a plate of scrambled eggs towards you and flips over a fork for you to take. He doesn’t take no for an answer, but since the call is finally wrapping up, you oblige and wolf down a few bites before typing out an email of your notes.

Steve asks a few questions of his own while refreshing both cups of tea and not bothering to offer sugar for yours. You…weren’t aware he knew that about you.

Until the car comes in an hour to get you to your next meeting, there’s nothing on the agenda, but you fully expect Steve to cram in a breakdown of the afternoon. Instead, he sips tea and folds the paper round and round until he’s done with all his interesting bits. You get to people watch, pedestrians outside the floor to ceiling windows of the hotel’s café bustling past in both directions.

Your attention is brought back when the table is cleared off, but Steve is no longer focused on the paper or the people. He sits and watches you again.

You smile as politely as you can even though you feel pinned down in the stare. “We better get going,” you advise, packing your things away.

Steve does put down his cup but doesn’t move otherwise.

“It’s your color.” He squints just slightly at his own revelation, relaxing back into his chair. “The dress.”

You have to swallow and clear your throat at that. “Yes, I suppose it’s one of my favorite colors.”

“It suits you.”

There’s no irony. Steve simply looks at you, blinks, looks some more, and it’s like you accidentally sat down naked in the lobby. His blue eyes are just that piercing.

“Thank you,” you say out of habit more than understanding and hurry on with the day.

It pours down rain for most of the afternoon, drenching your shoes as you traipse back and forth to the car with Steve. You have an umbrella, but nothing stops the puddles invading.

“I can’t do this,” you finally snap on the way back to the hotel. You’re on the verge of tears. The sides of your leather heels have rubbed the back of one ankle and the top outside of the other foot raw, almost/possibly bloody. It takes effort to peel them off your skin, and you hiss in pain.

Steve sits across the backseat completely horrified.

“I know, I’m so sorry. I’ll put them back on—“

Steve puts a hand out to stop you.

“Driver,” he calls, “is there a first aid kit back here? No, no, we just need a few bandaids.” The reassurance cuts off panic from the front, and after the click of the glove compartment sounds, a small box is offered through the window. Steve thanks him.

“I can do it, sir. Please don—“

That stare pins you again, and there’s dead silence in the back while your boss rips open a few wipes, cleans the blistered skin, dabs antibiotic ointment on the broken parts, and smooths the coverings overtop. You can’t help but notice how tender his touch is, but he’s just being thoughtful. It doesn’t mean anything.

As Steve returns to his seat (after it feels like a struggle to break eye contact), he gets a call.

His friend Bucky Barnes is in town, too, on a quick layover before a transatlantic flight and long business trip. The two don’t get to talk as much as they’d like, and you know they don’t see each other very often either.

“Of course, we’ll do dinner, Buck. Name the place.”

We will do what now?

You start waving your hands and miming towards your feet.

Steve eyes you a second. “No, right, I will meet you there in—driver, how long is it to Chinatown from the hotel? Yeah, so about an hour from now? Excellent.”

You might have interpreted that wrong. He meant ‘we’ as in him and Bucky, no doubt. In case he didn’t though…

“Shall I call and make reservations for you two?”

“He’s handling it. Traveling with a few associates who know the area and the restaurant.”

“It’s a good one. You can dress down there.”

Steve offers a ghost of a smile as he looks down at his layers of clothing, pondering. He glances at your bandaged feet and looks like he’ll say something before shucking off his coat, and then his suit jacket, and then his vest.

Without a word, you hold out your arm to take the unnecessaries back upstairs.

“You don’t have to,” Steve all but whispers.

He’s never questioned using your service. Ever. He tosses the clothes onto the back-facing seats across the car and undoes the first two buttons beneath his tie. The car stops at the entrance just as he pulls the tie loose.

Shoes in one hand, briefcase slung over your shoulder, you sigh loudly and hold out your hand again very close to his face.

Steve drapes the tie across your palm.

“Have a good dinner, sir.”

You collect the rest and walk in barefoot. You don’t look back.

Next Part Main Masterlist; Light Masterlist; Ko-Fi

Again, full disclosure: I have never seen the movie His Girl Friday. Just going off a synopsis and running away with it, but now that I've PLOTIFIED the whole damn thing, you're getting three cute-ass chapters *and you'll like it* bwahahahahaha

divider by @firefly-graphics

#steve rogers fic #steve rogers #steve x reader #fanfic #steve x you #steve rogers fanfiction #fluff and feels #fluff and romance #steve rogers fanfic #steve rogers fluff #steve rogers smut #steve rogers x reader #steve rogers x reader smut #idiots to lovers #it had to be you #series #steve rogers x you #steve rogers x reader fluff #steve rogers x f!reader #steve rogers x y/n

[zmediaoutlet]

fic: all we want is more

Been working on this Sam/Deanna fic and figured I'd post the first half. I'm a sex scene and denouement away from finishing but -- hey, it's wincest wednesday and let's get some writing out there.

title: all we want is more pairing: Sam/always-a-girl Deanna rating: explicit length: 16k (chapter 1; full fic will likely be ~35k)

summary: Sam and Deanna have never been good at boundaries.

(read on AO3)

When Sam slams his way back in, muscling through the cheap Kwikset that sits sloppy in the hollow-core and then making sure the screen door bangs satisfyingly behind him, it's a disappointment to find the house empty. He heels the door closed, turns the slack lock. It smells musty inside, the way it always does—this is a particularly skanky rental—but the nose-wrinkling shock after he gets back from school is worse than usual. Dad's gone, of course, but the bathroom's also all shadow and the bedroom's dark and, when he drops his backpack by their pile of clothes and clicks the light on, it's… okay, yeah. He deflates a little. He'd been pissed off all day, even through third period English where he was working on his project with Noelle Cooper, who was in the running for nicest girls he'd ever met, and he'd been short with Mr. Trainor in AP Stats even though he actually loved stats, and he'd gritted his teeth through a crappy lunch and ignored his group in World History, all because he was marshalling his arguments and drawing down battle lines. If this school had a forensics club he'd be the star. All that righteous anger that'd foamed its way up to a thundercloud kind of dissipates, standing in an empty house with nowhere for it to go, and he's just left in the slow turn of the ceiling fan, the bare bulb shining too bright, and as he looks around the bedroom all the piss and vinegar just kinda tastes like the shit it is, because… okay, maybe—maybe—he's not completely in the right, here, and maybe his sister had a point. He chews his lip. He hates it when Deanna's right.

The argument was stupid. They always are. Dad's been gone for three weeks of a planned four, and Deanna actually got a job this time, which wasn't the usual but had become more common as Dad started leaving them alone for longer and longer stretches. At twenty she'd developed an impressive resume of an eleventh grade education, three waitressing gigs, a stint at a garage that ended quickly when she'd had to feed the manager his balls for what he'd said into her ear on her second shift, and as many cash-under-the-table quicky jobs as she could get with a winning smile and her wits. Sam got to hear most of the details because the defense of needing to do homework wasn't enough to stop Dee talking his ear off while she vented a day working some crap job and bitching that she wasn't out doing some real work with Dad—and Sam gets, he isn't actually an idiot, that she's worried about Dad and that she's guilty for staying behind and that she doesn't know what to do with herself when both those things are true. He reads books, he watches movies; he gets more than Deanna thinks. Doesn't stop it from being incredibly annoying when she spills all that bitching over onto him, and then because bitching doesn't do anything she starts nagging, like she's not just his sister but his mom—she's working, can't he clean up after himself; she's cooking, can't he do the dishes; she's the only one earning money around here, can't he help?

The bedroom's really—a disaster. They've each got their twin mattresses, shoved against the walls on either side of the room, and it's not like Deanna's side is pristine but Sam's is… he's not sure he noticed it was getting that bad. When was the last time they did laundry? In the kitchen he looks to see if there's still Kool-Aid in the pitcher, and there is, but all the cups are dirty, jumbled in with the mugs in the sink, and—when Dad's here they take turns, regimented, no matter if Deanna's got work or if Sam's got homework—even Dad takes his turn, and Sam can say a lot about his dad but shirking duty's not one Sam can really lay on him—or at least, not this kind of duty, and thinking about it that way's got a weird curdling kind of acid lacing its way through Sam's gut, because—he's mad, but. He's not an asshole. He's—almost certain he's not an asshole. Right?

Four o'clock on a Friday. He has homework. He has all those arguments he put together. Most of them boiling down, if he plays them back, to how life isn't fair. He hugs the cold pitcher against his stomach, looking at the full sink. When he goes to put it back there's a takeout box on the top shelf he didn't notice that says, scrawled in dark pen that bites into the styrofoam, EAT ME. New since that morning. He cracks the lid and finds: club sandwich, pale steak fries, wilty greyish broccoli. The kind of thing Dee would never order. He takes a deep breath and closes the fridge. Okay. Okay.

The rental is from some old lady. Sam didn't meet her but watched Dad talk to her through the windshield while whatever deal got done. Lemon-faced broad, is what Deanna called her, leaning in confidence over the back of the bench seat while Sam tried to pretend he was reading, but the house she was letting them rent for cash was more-or-less furnished, a couch and a TV and plates and a weird carpeted cover on the toilet lid, and in the closet by the kitchen there's stuff people could use to clean. Not that it's been used, much. Sam's never had a lot of opportunity in his life to practice this stuff—the only good thing about motels is that someone else is paid to clean them—but, hey. He reads, he's watched movies. Mrs. Doubtfire had that whole vacuuming scene. It can't be that hard.

*

By nine o'clock Sam's exhausted. The kitchen alone took an hour. The vacuum bag burst, and that's when Sam learned that vacuums took bags, and that's also when Sam learned how to replace one, and got completely covered in a silty fine dust that he thinks might still be in his lungs when he's fifty. He took a break to eat the sandwich and fries and broccoli, all cold and needing salt but if this house has one thing, it's salt, and he was ravenous like he usually only is after a long afternoon of training with Dad clapping his hands, making them go faster and faster. Bathroom was freaking gross, and the trashcan stunk bad from what he realized only too late was tampons in little mummy-wraps of TP, and then he kind of gagged but—blood's blood, right, and it's not like he hasn't seen his share. Tired or not, though—that was the whole point, wasn't it, so: the bedroom, smelling like weeks of undone laundry, and he opens the window on the back wall and—gets to work.

The second good thing about this house: it's only two narrow streets inside the cramped neighborhood, so it's a five-minute walk to the laundromat out on the main road, in the middle of the strip mall between a nail salon and a donut shop. 24-hours with an attendant who barely looks up when Sam comes in dragging two army duffles full of everything he could stuff into the bags, and a machine that spits out quarters in exchange for the crumpled bills in his pocket, and no one else in here, because it's a Friday night, and who's sad enough to be doing the laundry on a Friday night?

He takes over the folding tables in the middle of the silent machines and gets to work. This he has done, because Deanna's given him the rundown: separate whites from colors, jeans & jackets from soft stuff that might get torn, check pockets for money & tissues & bullets. He starts the sheets first, glad at least that Deanna's not doing this—he doesn't need any commentary about crusty cotton, thanks very much—and then it's unzipping both bags, making three horrible piles. Blood on the sleeve of Deanna's blue canvas jacket. Sam's favorite jeans with mud ground into the knees from the fight he got into at school, the other day, which he still hasn’t told Dee about, because he hates the expression she gets when someone's commented on the hot chick who picks him up after school sometimes and wants to know how much she charges. Not the first time, anyway; probably not the last.

He finishes with his own duffle and turns to Deanna's, upending it completely. T-shirts, camisoles, underwear of all kinds. Bras, that he untangles and attaches the hook & eyes, like she showed him, so they won't catch on everything else. Rolled up jeans, and the wad of flannel shirts he'd scooped up from the dirty pile and shoved in, and then, rolling out of a plastic bag like the one Sam uses for his dirty shorts, a plastic clamshell-style box, and when he picks it up he takes a second, tired and staring, before he realizes what he's looking at, and then he drops it with a huge clatter onto the linoleum, loud enough to be heard over the rattling washer, making the attendant glance up over her book, uninterested. "Sorry," Sam says, and she returns to the paperback, and Sam stares at the thing by his feet. Lurid pink against the speckled yellow-grey floor. Absolutely zero way to mistake it for anything but—what it is.

The bell on the door jingles—some lady, backing in with a huge basket in her arms—and Sam stoops quickly and picks up the box and throws it into Dee's duffle. His face is so hot his cheeks are prickling. He wipes his hand over his mouth—is briefly revolted, because he—he touched it, and now he's touching—but the new customer's noticed him, and she smiles briefly in that way people do when they're in the same space and never plan to speak, and he's got to be normal, because this is—normal. He's doing laundry. He shoves loads two and three into their washers and drags the bags off the table so the new lady can do her own sorting, and he decamps to the chairs on the far side of the room from the attendant booth, more or less hidden, where he can see the TV in the corner playing a silent version of The Mask, and he points his face at the TV and watches Jim Carrey make goofy faces and he's being very very calm and casual because he's just a person, doing his laundry, and he's watching a movie that's pretty funny, and he's not thinking about his sister's dildo, tucked into the bag between his feet. At all. Just watch him.

*

Past midnight, when he's walking home. Slight cool breeze that feels good. He keeps flushing, on and off. Over the waiting for the wash cycle and then switching everything over to the dryers and then the hour plus of waiting for that he'd gone through various stages. Gross-out obviously first. But—he did know that Deanna went out with guys, and he'd seen her with guys even, although never—never all the way. But when that dude who'd run the desk at the last motel had had her backed up against the counter with his hand on her ass and his mouth tucked up close under her ear when Sam came in to get a soda from the machine—when Deanna had seen Sam walk in and grabbed the guy's shoulders, warning, and then when a beat passed and she relaxed and was squirming and laughing lightly and saying, hey, Sammy, get me a Crush, would you? I'll get back to the room in a minute—it's not like Sam didn't know what was going on. He reads. He's seen movies. He's seen those kind of movies, too. He's lived with his sister his entire life and he had sex ed at like five different schools now. He jerks off. He does get it. He just didn't expect—it was always kind of—academic. Theory versus practice. But now—

The Impala's parked in front of the house when he turns the corner to their street. Shit. He fumbles for his keys in the porch-light but it turns out not to matter: the door flings open, and Deanna says, "Oh my god, Sammy!"

Sam hefts the bag he'd dropped over his shoulder. "It's Sam," he says, as calmly as he can, and walks in through the clean living room back toward their bedroom with every no-big-deal bone in his body.

It smells better in here, at least. He dumps the bags onto the clean and empty carpet between the mattresses and slings the sack with their sheets on top. Eruption of Fresh Breeze as he drags out the wad of cotton, still warm. Two top sheets, two pillowcases, two of the thin filler blankets they stole from motels a five years and who knows how many miles ago, and he's splitting them between the two halves of the room when there's an ostentatious throat-clearing behind him, and he bites his lip hard, and turns around with the blankets still in his arms, and Deanna's leaning in the doorway, giving him a look like he's some alien species she's never seen before.

"So," she says.

Sam shrugs. "So?"

She raises her eyebrows, looking exaggeratedly around the bedroom. He hasn't seen her since this morning, since he slammed the door the first time, and she looks—like she always does, pretty much. Messy ponytail, a lot of eyeliner, purple plaid shirt tied up under her boobs because she says it gets better tips at the bar, and if anyone would know it's her. She's holding a beer, dangling lazy against her thigh, and she taps a nail against the glass one-two-three times before she meets Sam's eyes again, squinting a little. "Did you get replaced by a pod-person?"

Sam rolls his eyes. "No."

"Shapeshifter? Some kind of, I don't know, djinn wish freak where the dishes get done but I'm gonna get all my blood sucked out before Monday?"

Sam drops her green blanket on her bed, flush crawling from his throat to his ears. "No."

"Okay, cool," Deanna says, and then when Sam looks up at her she's smiling, crooked, in that way where she's kind of sweet and kind of sorry and kind of making fun of him, all at once. That smile where she's just—his sister, annoying and comforting in equal measure. "You ate, right?" He nods, thinking: eat me. Deanna's smile angles, making a dimple peek into one cheek, and she tips her head. "Bet you could eat again, huh?"

Sam's stomach twinges. Dee and Dad say he's going through a growth spurt; the only way he notices is that he's starving, half the time. "I guess," he says, shrugging.

Deanna rolls her eyes but she's not mad. "He guesses," she says, and comes forward, and grabs Sam's wrist while he's trying to shake out a pillowcase, warm, tugging. "C'mon, short stuff. Walt sent me home with the manager meal. Might as well make sure it goes to a good cause."

In short order he's pushed down at the kitchen table, another styrofoam box in front of him. Burger, more fries. He takes the burger—he is hungry—but swivels the box her way, and she sits across from him, eating fries one at a time, the corners of her mouth tipped soft. Easier than he's seen her since Dad left. The burger's cold but it's not the first time he's had a cold burger; he wolfs it down, avoiding her eyes, and she finishes her beer and then gets up and brings back two, uncapped, pushing the other right in front of him.

He wipes the back of his mouth with his wrist. "Dee," he says, careful.

"You earned it," she says, and holds out her bottle, neck first. Not like he gets to drink with them much but he knows this part—he clinks the necks together, clumsy, and drinks at the same time as her. Bitter and kind of gross as always, but she smiles at him again when she lowers her bottle. "Hell. Who even knew the carpet was that color?"

The argument's completely dissolved. Maybe she won; Sam doesn't care at this point. "I'm not sure old lady Franken remembers it's this color," he says, and Deanna sniggers, and takes another sip of her beer, and then leans over the table and tucks her hand into his hair and kisses him on the forehead, so abrupt that Sam just freezes and lets it happen, even if he's been too old for her to do that kind of thing since—well, since—forever. The amulet he gave her swings forward between them, gleaming.

Dee tugs his hair, just slightly, at the nape of his neck. "Thanks, Sammy," she says, quiet, and it's the apology they won't say out loud, soft between them. She touches his jaw, quick, and straightens up, and says, "Bar was extra greasy today, somehow. I'm taking a shower. Don't drink the rest of the beer without me, huh?"

"As if," Sam says, and she ruffles his hair back—this time he does duck out of the way, scoffing—and then she disappears into the bathroom, and he's left with the last few bites of burger and this warm feeling all through him, from his belly all the way up to the flush in his cheeks, because—Deanna's annoying, frustrating, too demanding and too invasive and too much, all the time, but—ever since he can remember, this is how it's been. When she's happy, and when she's proud of him, and there's this answer in his chest. Like it's a Michigan winter and he's freezing to death, but then he gets into the Impala and the heater's on full and he holds his hands up to the vents and there's that prickling, tingling thaw that means—home safe.

He makes the beds, as much as possible. Cases on each of their pillows, thin blankets smoothed somewhat into place. They're lucky it's April, and luckier that they're in Louisville and not Bismarck; mostly it's Sam who's lucky, because he doesn't exactly mind camping in the cold but Deanna bitches absolutely nonstop, out loud if they're alone and under her breath if Dad's nearby or, somehow, Sam's convinced, using some kind of psychic brain powers when Dad's right there with them so that even if she's not saying anything out loud Sam can hear every single thought she's having about cold toes or fingers or freezing my frickin' tits off. How would that even work, Sam has said, and she's just huddled closer to the fire and flat-out pouted. It's sort of cute. In a deeply annoying way.

He's unpacking their duffle bags when the shower turns off. He thought she'd be slower. The tile in here's even kinda white now! comes echoing through the mostly-closed door and around the corner into the bedroom, and she sounds genuinely delighted. Sam bites his lip, setting his stack of jeans next to the pile of his folded shirts. He's worked his way around to her side of the room and is making more stacks—her jeans and cut-off shorts, her jackets, the more complicated pile of her tops—when she leans into the bedroom, and he looks up to find her—towel wrapped around under her armpits, legs bare and gleaming, wet hair clipped behind her head, amulet cord shiny-black around her neck. "Dude, you aren't careful, I'm gonna get used to this," she says, crooked smile firmly in place. "It's gonna turn into the adventures of rockin' Deanna Winchester and her butler baby bro."

"Fat chance," Sam says, which does come out a little thin when he's laying out her clean bras on the freshly vacuumed carpet. She raises her eyebrows, looking between the clothes piles and his face, grin getting bigger, and Sam shrugs. "It stunk in here, okay? I do have a nose that works."

"Well, we know who the culprit was there," she says, and disappears for a second—back, before he's finished pairing her boot-socks—and hands him his discarded beer from the kitchen, and crouches down next to him, smiling soft at the clean clothes. "So, full-service Sammy—" ignoring Sam's scoff— "Are there any clean pjs in here, or do I gotta sleep in my altogether?"

"Ew," Sam says, firmly, and Deanna wrinkles her nose at him, making fun. He hands the beer back, ignoring in his turn how she promptly steals a swallow, and unzips her bag further. Not like she's got a fancy matched set like people in movies; she mostly sleeps in Sam's old D.A.R.E. shirt he got in middle school that would've fit a linebacker better than an eleven year-old, and a pair of Dad's old boxer briefs, which Sam finds honestly weird but Dee claims they're the softest things ever and, well, Sam has now folded them, and they're… pretty soft. But still. They're past the pile of her folded underwear, which he hands out to her, and under the—oh. Right.

He doesn't look up when he pulls out the plastic bag with the dildo. "Here," he says, holding the clothes over to his left where she's crouched. She doesn't move and he waggles them. "C'mon. I don't need to see any more naked sister than I have already."

To his credit, he manages to sound like he mostly has his crap together. Dee pulls the pjs out of his hand, slowly. He wraps the plastic bag more securely around the clamshell box and tucks it into a space between her boots and her jeans, and with that her duffle's pretty much empty, other than the little zip-bag with her tampons and pads and condoms. Like Dad taught them, he rolls the duffle up into a tight burrito that can get tucked neatly in with everything else, and with that he's done. House is clean.

"Okay," Deanna mutters. "Awkward."

Sam's mostly been able to ignore how hot his cheeks feel. He shrugs, standing up, and Deanna stays hunched there on the ground, her arms folded over her chest holding onto her pajamas and holding the towel in place, grimacing. "Not like it's nothing I haven't seen," Sam says.

Deanna frowns at him. "You're fifteen."

Sam rolls his eyes. "Sixteen," he says. "In, like. Three weeks. Come on, I know what a dildo is. Didn't you call that last werewolf one? He got super mad, too."

Furious, actually, enough to charge like an idiot out of cover at the pretty girl mocking him, bait dancing out in the open, which meant that Dad, waiting with Sam behind the cover of the trees, could shoot him in the heart. The blood spatter hit Dee's face and she spat it out right onto the corpse, and called him something else Sam couldn't hear.

"That was pretty funny," Deanna says, now. Her ears are pink. "Still. Didn't mean for you to, um. You know."

"Maybe now you won't ask me to do laundry," Sam says, and makes his tone all sweet and hopeful like a little kid.

Deanna makes a really strange face, hesitating, and Sam can't hold onto it before he starts sniggering. She stands up, finally, rolling her eyes. "Dork," she says. Blushing, still, which is pretty rare for his sister, but at least she's not freaking out. "Fine. Grown-up Sammy, knows all about dildos. Guess that means I don't need to give you the advanced sex talk, huh?"

"Can't be any worse than the last one you gave me," Sam says, which on second thought might be the last time he was this embarrassed, and she snorts, her eyes drifting down, away. Still pink. All scrubbed clean like this she looks different—no eyeliner, her skin shining soft. Freckles all over her cheekbones and nose and her curved-in shoulders. A loop of hair's curling at her neck and Sam reaches out, tugs it—not hard, but enough that she blinks, looks up at him. "No big deal. Swear."

She looks up into his eyes. Her lower lip sucks in and drags out slow through her teeth, shining wet. Something warm curls in Sam's gut and swoops high up into his chest and then plummets straight down. He catches his breath. "No biggie," Deanna says, while Sam's still trying to reorient himself, and she gives him a one-sided smile. She turns back toward the bathroom, says over her shoulder, "Hey, I think they're playing Evil Dead on the movie channel tonight. You make the popcorn and I'll braid your hair."

"Ha," Sam says, watching her bare leg disappear around the corner, and he holds his knuckles to his cheek, feels how hot it is. The bag sits on the floor, inert. He stares at it, thinking—stuff he shouldn't be thinking—and then reaches up and yanks the chain so the bare bulb winks out. He's left in the dark, the fan turning slowly overhead.

*

They sleep in on Saturdays. Meaning, mostly, Deanna sleeps in on Saturdays, because as far as Sam can tell, given the opportunity, she goes into a coma. In the quiet of the house Sam does most of his homework. Sophomores at this school do geometry for some reason and it's kiddie stuff but it means he can blast through the assigned problems for Monday and Tuesday and the extra credit, too, before he gets through his first cup of coffee; world history is going over the creation and spread of Christianity, and he has to fill out a worksheet on important dates and leaders in the Roman Empire at the turn from BC to AD; in health they're studying the reproductive system, and again this is stuff he pretty much already knows, but it's at least kinda interesting to see how the egg cell is about the size of the period at the end of the sentence. He's put his fingernail there, comparing, when Deanna wanders out of the bedroom, yawning. 10:30, according to Sam's watch. Not even close to her record.

"Hey, short stuff," she says, blurry. Makes a happy noise when she finds the coffee made. Sam's filling out another worksheet—the bilateral conduits between ovary and uterus are called fallopian tubes, he writes carefully—when she wraps an arm loosely around his neck, a kiss mushed against his hair. A boob squishes against his shoulder. "Hm. Nerd o'clock?"

Sam goes tch, barely paying attention. He's nearly done with this page, and then it's just the chapters they've got to read for English.

"Ooh, sexy," Dee says. She taps her nail on the cross-section of the female body in the textbook, on the breast diagram with its layers of nipple and fat and milk ducts neatly labeled. "No shame, but c'mon, porn at the table? Rude, Sammy."

"Dude," Sam says, lifting his head, and she snickers and lets him go, slumping into the chair across the table. Her bun's all messed up from sleep, crust still at the corners of her eyes. Holding the weird chipped mug that says KENSUCKY in both hands under her chin, apparently trying to inhale caffeine through the steam. Kinda gross but all soft and relaxed. Not a bad way to start a Saturday. "You got a shift today?"

She groans, takes a slurpy sip from the mug. Wrinkles her nose. "Blah," she says, sticking out her tongue. Sam rolls his eyes. If she refuses to put milk in that's her own problem. "Four to close, same as yesterday." Sam checks his watch again and she raises her eyebrows. "That work for your schedule, boss?"

"I have to meet Noelle at the library at two."

Deanna actually focuses, finally. "Noelle?"

"From English," Sam says. At the continued blank look he sighs. "She's my partner for the Shakespeare project. I told you about that."

"Oh, right," Deanna says, dragging it out. Her mouth curves, in that way that broadcasts to space that Sam's about to be made fun of. "No-elle."

Sam waves his hand. "Okay, get it out."

"No, no," Deanna says, grinning. "I think it's great that the two of you are so focused on your education." Like a dirty word. She slurps at her coffee again, annoyingly loud while making big eyes at Sam over the rim, and splutter-snorts at whatever expression Sam makes. "Relax, dweebus. I'll give you a ride over there. Walt's been on my ass about being late, though, so if the hot Shakespearean action keeps going past like 3:30 you gotta find your own way home."

"Thank you, Deanna," Sam says, perfectly polite, and she mouths it back at him purely to be annoying.

Quiet then, though. She drinks her coffee; he fills out his worksheet. She eats a bowl of cereal and watches whatever's coming through on the rabbit-ears—Seinfeld rerun, sounds like—and Sam reads another fifty pages of The Age of Innocence, and he's bored to death but they're going to have essay questions on it next week, so. She gets up to wash dishes—not such an imposition now that it's just two mugs and two cereal bowls—and touches Sam's shoulder as she goes, just—checking in, basically, clearly not even thinking about it on her way to the sink, but it's a soft little warm thing that goes through Sam's t-shirt and through his skin down into his chest, because Dee just—she really has been pissed off, this last week, and he didn't realize until last night how much she doesn't touch him, when she's mad. He didn't know how much he missed it.

Dee goes out to mess around with the Impala, doing… whatever it is she does when she's got time to kill and an engine under her hands, and Sam ends up finishing the book for English. The writing isn't his favorite but he got caught up in the plot. It's… depressing, to say the least. All these people, doing what they're expected to, and all of them worse off for it.

He vents this to Deanna, sitting on the toilet while she's doing her make-up for work. Newland's a coward and Ellen got cold feet and May's boring and why didn't any of them just—do what they wanted?

Deanna finishes her eyeliner, leaning back to look at the effect. "But didn't New-guy knock up May?" She catches his eye in the mirror; he shrugs, already seeing the point she's going to make but still annoyed at the fictional idiots. "I don't know. I mean, it sucks, but—you gotta do what you gotta do. It was like medieval times or whatever, right, so it's not like anyone was being smart about babies."

"It wasn't medieval times," Sam says, and Deanna shrugs, in her turn. She ties up her hair, like she usually does on civilian days: ponytail, bangs falling around her face that she tucks behind her ears. He watches her swipe on a layer of lip gloss, feeling mulish. "Seriously. All he had to do was—go talk to Ellen, sack up."

That gets him raised eyebrows in the mirror. Like Dee isn't gross or cussing or whatever, all the time. She smacks her lips, makes an O of them, staring down her reflection. "Sounds to me like he sacked up, but it was for the kid, not some random broad," she says, but like she's barely paying attention. "You wouldn't like him any better if he were some deadbeat dad."

She goes all heavy-lidded at herself, makes kissy-face. Model-pretty, his sister. Smart, too—sometimes, Sam thinks. Rarely. Another look, backwards in the mirror, lips parted and her face set like she's in one of those Calvin Klein perfume ads, sexy for no reason. "Good?" she says, breathy.

She's wearing the thin dark green henley unbuttoned as far as it'll go, her amulet resting in the split and the inside curves of her black bra showing on either side of it, and those jeans that sit so low on her hips that there's two inches of creamy-white stomach peeking out, her silver ring heavy on her thumb and those little silver studs in her ears and her face just—her face. All she ever needs. "If you're into that kind of thing," Sam says, dismissive.

All the model-sexy collapses and she snorts, grinning. "You're such a sweetheart," she says, and swivels away from the mirror, smacking her hands against her hips. "So—are we going, or what?"

"Or what," Sam says, outraged, sitting up straight. "I was waiting for you—"

Deanna drops him right in front of the library, a minute to two. "Phone charged?" she says. Sam sighs, gathering his backpack. "Yeah, yeah. I'm going to the Checker, and then I'm gonna swing by the discount mart for some groceries—you want anything? It's gotta sit in the car."

"Just no more peanut butter," Sam says. Pleads, more like. He's eaten his weight Peter Pan this past month.

"Starving kids in Ethiopia or wherever would kill for that peanut butter, you know," Deanna says, but she just swats his hip. "Go on. Miss Noelle ain't gonna wait forever."

Sam sighs, again, but Dee's checking the wing mirror to pull out, not paying attention, and so he piles out onto the sidewalk, swinging his backpack over his shoulder, engaging with the normal world. "Make sure she's really into it before you try for second base, tiger," Deanna says, leaning over the bench seat, and Sam says, "Oh my god, leave already," and slams the door, and Dee grins wide at him with her tongue between her teeth before the engine throttles up and the car leaps away, too fast through the sedate Saturday afternoon parking lot, making too much noise, just too—everything. He watches it go, face hot, and then closes his eyes and tips his chin up, feeling the springy breeze and remembering that—okay, there are people in the world who are not his family, who are totally normal, and one of them is—oh, waving, through the glass doors of the library, and Sam packs everything that is weird and Winchester down and away and waves back, trotting along the sidewalk and up the steps to meet Noelle, who smiles at him broad and then shy, and Sam can do this. Sam's good at this.

*

When she comes to pick Noelle up, Mrs. Cooper offers to give Sam a ride home, too. She has a blue minivan, with a little boy strapped into a carseat on the middle bench, giving Sam a sticky and curious look while Noelle stows her bag. "No, thank you, ma'am," Sam says. Actually-polite, not the voice he used on Dee earlier. "My mom's on her way."

"All right, sugar," Mrs. Cooper says, and Noelle waves from the passenger seat as they move sedately out into the neighborhood. Mrs. Cooper has a faded bumper sticker that says her child is an Honors Student at Jefferson County Middle. Sam tries to imagine the Impala with something like that and snorts out loud, then feels bad for it, even if no one's around to hear, or even know what he's thinking. Mrs. Cooper seems nice. Noelle's nice. It's all just—nice.

He gets to the basically-a-dive where Deanna works at half-past six. Marv's, says the flickery neon sign, though Sam has no idea who Marv is, and it's the kind of place that has windows but they're made of block glass, impossible to see through, and the door has iron security bars over the front. Not somewhere the Coopers visit, probably.

About half-full, when Sam comes through the door. In about a quarter second he takes in: jukebox playing Styx, yuck; cigarette smoke in the air; a couple guys playing darts, laughing loud, already kind of drunk, hopefully won't be a problem. Deanna's behind the bar, leaning on her elbows, talking to two guys, smiling like she's really interested, but she catches Sam's eye for a split second and tips her head toward the back. He goes where he's pointed: the tiny two-seater booth right by the kitchen doors, where he's already spent hours doing homework even if Dee's only had the job three weeks. Marv's is a pit but it's better than being home alone. Sometimes.

He's deep in his fresh-from-the-library copy of Helter Skelter when there's a tickly-shivery drag of fingers at the back of his neck, rucking his hair up, and he jumps. "Great situational awareness, kiddo," Deanna says, while he shudders, and sets a Coke in front of him. She drops down into the other side of the booth, raising her eyebrows. "You and books. Seriously, I think a ghoul could've snacked on your innards just now."

"If a ghoul's in the bar then we've got bigger problems," Sam says, and she huffs. She looks back out over the bar, eyes going from table to table. Like there's actually a ghoul, and not just people drinking the daylight away. "You still working until midnight?"

"Unless a handsome prince comes and steals me away," she says. Her eyes slide sidelong to him. "You got a chariot out there you haven't told me about?"

"Not yet," Sam says.

She smiles at him, and then the door opens again—another two guys, biker-looking, who probably will appreciate flirty service from a pretty girl, and who hopefully will tip well, since that's the whole point of this stupid gig. Deanna bites the tip of her tongue and takes a deep breath, and stands up. "I'll get Carlos to make you something—what, sandwich, burger?"

"Chicken strips?" Sam says, and she nods and says, "Don't disappear into the book, Poindexter," and then she's behind the bar again, smiling warm and wide at the two new guys, and in a gap between songs on the jukebox Sam hears her say, "Hey, fellas," sweet as pie, and they smile back at her like it's a compulsion, because that's what Dee does to guys. It's only Sam, he's pretty sure, who knows the difference between the smile these guys are getting and the one he just got. It's a subtle difference, but—it's different.

He has his dinner, and tucked into the back here he does get to watch the bar, between sections of his book. Deanna's good at this, like she's good at practically everything: engines and crossbows and classic rock and figuring out what Dad wants before he even says it, and sometimes before he thinks it, as far as Sam can tell. Seems like that last skill extends to here. Saturday night and it gets busier, although no one looks to steal Sam's table. Wendy the waitress comes in for her shift, but Sam can see that it's Dee the guys want to talk to, who they wait for, whose attention they drink up, as much as the beer. Sam goes to doctor the jukebox at one point, slotting in his quarters for the Led Zeppelin songs he's heard least if he can't get anything actually from this decade, and when he turns around Deanna's at one of the four-tops in the middle of the room, the yellow-and-blue beer sign neon shining bright on her hair, and she's leaning on the back of one guy's chair while another one's telling some joke, from their faces—Deanna laughs, on cue, bright over the music—and Sam can see, through the tables, how the guy's hand is curled around the inside of her thigh, his thumb sliding up the inseam of her jeans while she leans in, close, and that weird thing swoops through his gut again. Queasy and hot, in what ratio he can't decide.

It's a long night, torn between bored and tense. Walt appears from the back where he does nothing, as far as Sam can tell, and frowns at Sam, but Deanna catches his attention and asks some question about the POS Sam can't hear and Walt's face melts into soppy butter. It's honestly embarrassing. A minute of that and Deanna has to move off to get refills for the biker guys at the bar, and Walt pats her hip when she goes. Her hip, not her ass. It makes a difference, but how much of one Sam doesn't know.

Kitchen closes at eleven; last call at half past; and by midnight there are just a few guys that have to be ushered out. When Wendy closes and locks the front door Deanna bends over and buries her head in her folded arms on the bartop. Sam closes his book—he's nearly done, just from trying his best not to pay attention to the customers, no matter what Dee said—and brings his cup up to the bar himself. "Thanks, sweetie," Wendy says—she's like thirty, Sam wishes she wouldn't talk to him like he's her kid—and then she says, to Dee, "Thought Ty was gonna try to order off-menu by the end, there. Might've gotten you a big tip." Kinda smirky, the way she says it, though Sam doesn't know why.

Deanna levers upright, unfolding like a push-up, and gives Wendy the same kind of smile she was giving the guys, earlier. "Walt's going to need help with inventory," she says. Her mouth tips, fake-sorry. "I was gonna stay, but my kid brother's here, you know, and Walt said I better get him home safe." Wendy's expression goes kind of still, kind of murderous, but Deanna just lifts a shoulder and then says, "Got your bag, Sammy?" and when he nods she says, sweet, "Have a great night, 'kay?"

Outside it's cool but not cold, butts ashed all over the sidewalk. "Bitch," Deanna mutters, while the neon OPEN sign flickers out over the not-really-a-window. Sam's smart enough not to say anything. Dee takes a deep, deep breath, blows it slow with her chin tipped up at the night sky. Not a lot of stars, in the city. Sam rocks back on his heels, thumbs hooked into his backpack straps. Kinda smells like pee out here. There are worse places to wait.

Finally, Deanna: "Okay," she says, and tips her head toward him. "You ate, right?" He nods. "Okay," she says, again, and shrugs both shoulders, like she's dropping a bag she's not carrying. "Let's roll."

Tapedeck comes on super loud—the Stones, which isn't as bad as it could be—but Deanna cranks it down, letting them drive in relative quiet back out to the dumpy neighborhood with their rental. "Your project go okay?" she says, and it's kind of absent but she's also actually asking, so Sam says, "Yeah, we're doing this like—compare and contrast thing, Romeo and Juliet vs Hamlet," and Deanna gives him this sidelong look across the bench seat and says, "Isn't that the one where those teenagers bang and kill each other?" and Sam opens his mouth, not quite sure how to correct everything wrong with that question, before they pass under a streetlight and he sees that Deanna's got one of those teasing dimples tucked up into her cheek. "Pretty much," Sam says, instead, and Dee laughs, softly. "Hot stuff," she says. At a stoplight with no one else around for apparent miles she tugs the tie out her hair, and it falls in a wavy mass over her shoulder, and she makes this little noise like that's a weight come down, too. Sam sucks the inside of his cheek, watching her, not trying to pretend he isn't. Her wrist, loose and soft on top of the steering wheel. He wants to put her in some other life. Like that's an option.

At home—rather, back at the rental house—she tugs her boots off in the bedroom and then, glancing at Sam, tucks them into the line of her neatly-laid out clothes. She peels her henley over her head and tosses it into the corner—a new dirty clothes pile, but at least it's fresh instead of moldering weeks old—and pulls the D.A.R.E. shirt on, and while Sam's sitting on his mattress, pulling off his sneakers, she undoes her belt and shucks her jeans off, right there, so Sam gets a flash of purple underwear before the shirt falls down around her hips and there's just a mile of white thigh. "I want an entire chocolate cake," she says, peeling off one sock at a time. "Like. Triple layer, fudge frosting, those fancy, you know, rosette things. That and a fork."

"Um," Sam says. She drags her hands through her hair, cracking her neck side to side. "I think there are M&Ms you didn't eat in the kitchen?"

Deanna snorts. "That'll work," she says, and then squints at him, one-eyed. "You going to bed?"

Sam shrugs. She looks tired-but-not, loose and on edge. "You staying up?"

"Well, yeah," she says, like it's obvious. Smile spooling out, somewhere between the smile Sam usually gets and the ones those guys at the bar do. "I got these M&Ms to crush, I hear. If there's no cake."

Late night TV always sucks. They end up on the movie channel, like always, and it's—ugh, that terrible Street Fighter movie, but Dee throws down the controller and grins and says, "Perfect," and darts over to the kitchen quick and returns with: yes, the family-size bag of M&Ms, but also two beers, one of which is for Sam, again. He takes it, feeling weird—since when is he included in the list of grown-ups in the family?—but then Dee plops down into her corner of the couch and tucks her toes under Sam's thigh, and tugs the candy bag closer to her telling Sam that if he wanted some, he should've been smart enough to buy his own, and that feels more normal. He leans his elbow on his side of the couch and Deanna slouches into hers, bare legs gleaming in the TV-light. Van Damme is so bad in this movie. "Bite your tongue," Deanna says, wiggling her cold toes under his thigh, and Sam sighs, and drinks his beer, getting slowly used to the taste, and ignores Dee while she wrangles her bra off under his shirt and drapes it over the couch back, smooth black satin gleaming in the TV-light. He sort of watches the movie but mostly he listens to Deanna's commentary, and how Raul Julia is the best, and if they hit the arcade she bets she could beat his ass with Chun Li, and he's kinda warm and kinda nervous and kinda bored and kinda glad, all at once, but even with all that he does fall asleep at some point before the movie's over, because he wakes up when Dee's pulling the empty bottle out of his hand, careful and quiet. The TV's off. He hears her feet pad away, over the carpet, and then she's back, tucking something—his coat—around his shoulders, like a blanket.

He keeps his eyes closed, keeps his breathing soft. He gets to feel her swipe his bangs back, tucking his hair behind his ear, and then there's her fingers on his jaw, and then—a kiss, very soft, against his cheekbone. Her lips are warm. When he falls back asleep he dreams they're in the car, sleeping together in the backseat—the bench magically big enough to hold both of them end to end and side by side, like it hasn't been since Sam was like eight years old—and he's spooned around her, his arm over her waist and his nose in her hair, and her ass round and soft pressed up against him. His hand goes between her legs and feels that hard ridge of denim inseam, prickling painful against his fingers like it's the edge of a saw, or rose thorns, and it hurts but he keeps dragging his fingers up, light gleaming all over the back of the seat electric blue-and-yellow and making it so that when she turns her head, and stares at him, he can see the exact look on her face, but when he jolts awake in the pre-dawn light, breathing hard and sitting up straight and pushing a hand against his aching dick, he can't remember what the expression was.

*

Deanna wakes up when her phone rings. Sam's lying on his back with his arms folded over his face, breathing in and out very evenly, and gets to hear the whole thing. A muffled fuck and then the fabricky scramble through her discarded jeans, and then the phone flipping open, and then: "Dad?"

Who else would it be, Sam thinks.

His hair's wet and sogging out the pillow but he doesn't want to move. It was a very long and very hot shower and he scrubbed clean until his skin and hair squeaked. That didn't make anything go away but at least he couldn't smell beery cigarette smoke on his skin anymore. Not nothing. He turns his head and past the shadow of his arm Deanna's sitting up on her mattress, bare legs tucked beneath her, shoulders curved up around the phone like a girl from a movie whispering to her crush. The morning's coming through the blinds in clear white, striping her thigh, all the way to where Sam's shirt is rucked over her hip and her underwear's showing, alternate lines of dark and vivid purple. Creamy skin above that.

"Yeah, of course," Deanna says, while Sam's closing his eyes very tight. Weird purple bursts against the inside of the lids. Can't escape, apparently. "You need—?"

She's cut off. Little affirmative sounds while she listens. Sam takes another one of those deep breaths but jerking off in the shower apparently wasn't enough from how everything south of his navel seems to be on high alert. He folds his arms over his ribs instead, thinking tactically—he's got the blanket over his waist but if Dee goes to the bathroom he can change from his pajama shorts to his jeans, and maybe go for a walk or something, or read the Manson book to calm down, or—something—and when he looks again Deanna's shifted around, too, her back to the wall, her knees pulled up, shadows between them. Her lower lip sucked between her teeth. "Yeah," she says, soft. "'Kay. Be safe."

The phone's closed against the angle of her jaw, and she holds it there with her knuckles against her lips for a little while, eyes low, playing with her amulet with the other hand. "So?" Sam says, like he's not having an alternate crisis.

Her eyelashes dip, and then she leans forward, wrapping her arms around her knees. "Another week." She shrugs, like what can you do, except when has Deanna ever been casual about Dad gone on a solo job for weeks on end. An answering sourness crawls down Sam's throat to his stomach—that what if that's there whenever Dad's gone, but then again it happens when Dad's here, too. At least it takes care of the other problem, and as soon as Sam realizes there's a weird horrible mix of relief and shame that dumps over his head, like a prank bucket of shitty paint.

Luckily Deanna can't see it: she takes a deep breath and leans forward, her knees spreading out in a butterfly, grinning. "Means we still get to pick what to watch at night, huh?"

"You're joking," Sam says. If she wants to pretend to be casual, Sam can too. "I never get to pick."

"Aww," Deanna coos. "Little brother problems. I think they got a column for that in Highlights for Kids, you should write in."

Sam throws his pillow at her and she catches it, sniggering. More real than the grin before. "All right, whatever," she says, and unfolds from the mattress, stretching tall with the pillow held high overhead—Sam cuts his eyes away, in self-defense—and then hops the six inches down to the carpet, sighing. "Day off. Let's get some work done, huh?"

*

Bar's closed on Sunday. Marv's religious. Go figure. "I was gonna do laundry today," Deanna says, making the coffee, and she sends a sidelong conspiratorial glance over her shoulder, and Sam feels himself flush, collarbones to hairline. Luckily she's focused on grounds and filter and fishing her KENSUCKY mug out of the drainer, so he doesn't get ragged on for it. Deanna would be happier if he did the housework stuff more often; he's not sure he can take the intensity of her gratitude. It's just embarrassing, aside from everything else.

He's sent to get the groceries out of the trunk from Dee's trip yesterday: bread, ramen, condensed tomato soup, rice, strawberry jelly, 24-pack of beer, canned green beans. He holds up a can while she's sipping her coffee, raising his eyebrows, and she shrugs. "You said no peanut butter," she says, and, well. Sam did say that. Breakfast is generic-brand Eggos that she pops into the toaster and that get smeared with jelly, and she leans against the couch eating hers while watching the local news, watching with a professional eye for anything officially weird—nothing; as far as Sam can tell nothing interesting has ever happened in Louisville, ever—and Sam watches her. Her knee turns in, her thigh flexing. Toes painted blue. She sucks jelly off her thumb, eyes heavy on the TV, and Sam—oh, goddamn it. He sits up very straight at the table, tries the trick a kid at the last high school taught him: flexing his thighs, hard and quick, trying to redirect bloodflow. Sometimes he wishes he was born a girl. At least then it wouldn't be so obvious.

"Ugh," Dee says. Sam's eyes fly open but she's just shaking her head at the television, going to commercial. "Seriously, they can't get one cattle mutilation?"

"Super lame," Sam says. Kind of breathy. Deanna doesn't seem to notice. She scratches her thigh, absent, and drains the last of her coffee, and sighs. Tongue swipe along her bottom lip. Jeez-us.

"Guess we don't have a choice," she says, and tips her head at Sam. Pursed lips, apologetic. "You know what that means."

"What does it mean?" Sam says, and she wrinkles her nose, and he does get it, finally. "Aw, no—"

"Aw, yes," Deanna says, and ruffles his hair back on her way to the sink. "C'mon, kiddo, I don't like it any more than you do."

"So we could not, right?" Sam tries.

Obviously not: Deanna shakes her head, rinsing her mug. "Meet at the car in ten, soldier," she says, while he bangs his head against the table. "And if you're not in the bathroom in thirty seconds then I've got dibs."

He gets up, goes. Isn't shy about slamming the bathroom door when he does. In the mirror his hair's all screwed up and he's pink in the face and he's scowling. "Shut up," he says, to his reflection, and hustles.

*

Sam doesn't actually mind PT. He likes running, which is super lame after all the years of bitching about it—and there is absolutely zero chance he'll ever admit to Dad that he does—but there's something kind of satisfying about getting to the end of five miles and feeling that blood-rush through every part of his body, thighs humming and lungs working hard and his head clear.

That Deanna hates it is icing on the cake. "Can't the monsters just run to me," she pants, hands on her knees.

"Don't you wanna be the one doing the chasing instead of being chased?" Sam says, stretching his quads.

Deanna gives him a baleful look through her hair. He grins at her and she gives him the finger.

They're out in the woods, since Deanna drove them way out past the edge of the city. Better for the next part, but also good practice. They spend a lot more time sprinting at midnight between tree-trunks and leaping over rabbit-holes than they do on nice smooth high school tracks. Sweat's sticking Sam's shirt to his back but it's a pretty spring day, new leaves all over the trees and wildflowers coming up, white and yellow and pink.

"Ugh," Dee says, while Sam's feeling relatively at peace with the world. She redoes her ponytail, higher and tighter, although the choppy layers around her face don't quite make it. What passes for her PT gear are cut-off denim shorts, a grey camisole with a bloodstain making it unsuitable for the public (though it's not her own blood, which she insists counts for something), and a bright blue sports bra that she cusses at every time she wrestles herself into it. Better than bouncing, she says, and Sam figures he's got to believe it. She tucks her amulet behind the line of the bra and nods, and then says, "Okay," and levels a look at Sam. "Come at me, punk."

"Wait—" Sam says, backing up a step. "I thought we were shooting. Aren't we shooting?"

"Can do that too," Deanna says. She starts to move to the side, gearing up to circle him, and he rotates to face her, hands up. "But your grapple's kinda sloppy. Gotta keep you ship-shape."

Her eyes are tracking the important points—his hands, his feet, how his torso's turned—all the stuff they've used in wrestling, practically as far back as Sam can remember—but he hasn't often been this alarmed, not like now, all the sunny springtime peace of the run draining out to leave him nearly panicked. "This is dumb," he tries, continuing to back up, letting her pace him backwards.

"This is important," Deanna says, patient, like they haven't had the same argument fifty times. "Anyway, it's for me as much as you. You don't want me to be ship-shape, too?"

"Cute," Sam says, and Deanna smiles at him—really smiles, not one of those mocking sugary ones—and he catches his breath and says, "Dee," not knowing how he's gonna get out of it, and then his back hits a tree, his head clonking back against the bark, and she says, "Gotcha," and darts in.

He blocks the first punch, takes the second to the ribs. "Fuck!" he says, shoving, and she dances back, grinning at him, her boots kicking up the leaf-litter and moving easy over the uneven ground.

"Gotta think fast, little brother," she says, and hops in to aim a shot at his face—he ducks, and slaps her side as hard as he can with an open hand—connects, and she lets out this quick little noise, but that left him open for another punch to the chest, her knuckles right on his breastbone, pushing the breath out of him. He slaps at her again, wild, and she leans back and then dives right back in, making him block at shoulder and waist and jaw, dancing quick, light on her feet even in the clunky boots, making him work for it.

They don't swing as hard as they can but they don't pull back much. Dee's faster, Sam's stronger; Dee's better, but Sam's not bad, and they block each other's hits way more than they actually connect. When they started doing this Sam was nine and Dee was thirteen, and it didn't seem fair at all because she was like a foot taller than him, bigger and older and better at everything, but Dad said that was the point: making Sam catch up, grow up, get strong, and giving Deanna the chance to practice with someone who wouldn't really hurt her, especially then.

With all these years of practice they know each other's tells, even if they're also supposed to practice hiding those. Sam lands another slap on her hip and takes a soft-ish punch to the gut as punishment; she lunges for his leg and he catches her arm and uses her momentum to throw her around, stumbling back through the loam, panting. He could've gotten her there and didn't. They both know it—she frowns at him, chest heaving, and comes around to his left, circling, hands held loose and ready. Coming up on the end—if they're not going to really hurt each other, there's usually just the one end—and Sam knows where the trees are in the clearing now, avoids getting boxed in, waiting.

Deanna charges, aiming for his shoulder. He braces—and then, no, her eyes dart down—he swivels on his right leg, reaches for her forearm when she goes to grab his knee—pulls her in, close, and she cusses even as he yanks her around, stumbling, and shoves her chest-first into the nearest trunk, using his weight and height, her arm twisted behind her back between them, his chest and hips and legs crushed up against hers, stilling her, subduing.

"I win," he says, panting.

"Shit." Burst out, bitten. She strains, flexing and pushing back, but he's got thirty pounds on her and once they're grappled there's no way. Her arm twists in his grip but he keeps her still, fingers tight, making sure she gets it. Her head drops against the bark, a long sigh gusting out, her shoulder slumping soft, and that's when Sam feels past the adrenaline rush the warm-soft length of her body, her vanilla shampoo and the sweat at the back of her neck rising in his head, his hips pressed up against her ass, his stolen-from-school gym shorts thin, making him—

He steps back, hot-faced. God, is he—he glances down but not yet—not yet, and he crouches in the dirt, folding his arms over his knees, still breathing hard. Like that's why.

"Telegraphed that feint," Deanna says. She turns against the trunk, leaning her head back. Sweaty, flush high in her cheeks and ears and down her throat, disappearing into the blue bra. She puts her wrist to her forehead, puffing out a deep breath. "You're getting faster." Not even a compliment, just stating facts. Like she always does when they're really working. He sniffs, shrugging, and she leans forward, putting her hands on her knees again, squinting at him. "If it was a dirty fight I woulda got you, though. Left your nuts wide open."

"Thanks for not hitting me in the nuts," Sam says, dry, and she raises her eyebrows, like, try me.

Breeze swirls into the clearing, cool on the back of his neck, his bare arms. Deanna closes her eyes against it, lips parting in pleasure. Sam's gut wobbles but—he's calmed down, mostly, and he can stand up without embarrassing himself. "So," he says. Like it's no big deal. "Can we go home?"

"I got a case of empty cans in the trunk that need to get full of holes," she says. "You won the fight. So what? I'm gonna kick your ass at target practice." He makes a rude sound and she smiles, loose, and then finally opens her eyes and looks right at him—heavy, warm, like—yesterday in the bathroom mirror but real, this time, her lashes dark with sweat and her skin flushed and her chest rising in a deep breath, and he—he—

"C'mon, pipsqueak," she says, tipping her head back to where they parked the car. "I'll even let you choose, handgun or rifle."

"Thanks a lot," he says, as sarcastic as he can, and she grins and pushes away from the tree and brushes past him, fake elbowing like a dick but really just soft-warm, close, and he follows, forced to think the calmest, plainest thoughts he can, focusing on what's around: running water in the creek, and birdsong, and trees casting dappled shadows across the trail, and not at all the way her hips move, nor the freckled soft skin of her shoulders, nor the way he thinks he could fit his hands around her waist, hold her in place, and she'd turn her head and look up at him over her shoulder and she'd say—he can't imagine. In the image her mouth opens and no words exist.

*

They make it back to the rental house in the late afternoon. Shooting—yes, Deanna cored more cans than Sam, about which she crowed like an idiot—but also swinging by the post office box across town Dad had rented before he left, and stopping for gas, and then using one of those do-it-yourself carwashes, where Sam gets roped into helping, although he doesn't know why when Dee's always popping up behind him to re-do whatever sidepanel he's just finished. Not even trying to be bossy; she's just obsessive, even if she keeps making Miyagi wax-off jokes and waggling her eyebrows like she's funny. Sam determinedly doesn't laugh.

Sweaty and sore and yet kind of glad, all told, when they pile through the door. This is the kind of day Sam's never minded: working, with his family, but safe. Deanna groans, pulling her boots off, and says, "Oh my god, I have like a thousand dibs on first shower," and so Sam's left to sit in the bedroom, stripping off his sneakers and socks and sweaty shorts, sitting in his t-shirt and boxers, listening to her sing very very off-key—Long Black Road already sounds weird an octave higher—and then he sits on his mattress with his arms around his knees and feels all the good ache in his thighs and forearms and the sore spot where the rifle kicked back during shooting practice, and then he blinks and sees that what he's looking at is the plastic bag with its clamshell box, tucked next to where she tossed her boots, and this weird heat corkscrews down from his heart to his balls, quick as dropping a coin down a well, and he—licks his lips, swallows. Listens to the water hissing down.

Deanna comes out in her towel, again—amulet still on, like it always is, although her hair's loose, dripping down her back. "Your turn, stinky," she says, and Sam passes her like it's nothing, says, "Hope you left some hot water," and she says, "Can't rush the finer things, Sammy," and Sam strips and climbs into the tub and puts his head directly under the spray, taking that first rush of luke-cold before it goes hot, drowning. Like it helps. It smells like her in here: vanilla shampoo, peachy soap. He scrubs his hair back from his face and breathes wet under the spray and when he reaches down he's already hard, has been, needing—god. To get his head straight.

Not the first time. Not the last, given his track record. From furtive schoolyard magazine-sharing and pilfered late-night cable and the way they watched Basic Instinct and Dee paused it at that exact second and said, oh yeah, that's the stuff, and laughed fizzingly at Sam while he turned red and she pushed him over on their shared bed and mushed his head under the pillow, smothering him in heat and soft and warm girl-smell, pussy behind his eyes—god, yeah, he's got the mental images, enough to get him there. The shower's hot and deafening and his head goes blank except for that, imagining without context, just—soft boobs and the soft white curve of tummy between the navel and the too-low rise of jeans. The pink wet split, and what he imagines it'd be like to sink two fingers in, or to make like the too-tan guys with too-white teeth who get their heads between spread thighs and make the girls make those sounds—except, no, not exaggerated like that, because even if Sam hasn't done it he knows girls don't scream, that way, because he's got his sister and he's heard her, in her bed that's so often less than a yard from his. He's laid awake in the night listening to the wet rhythmic squishing that hardly rocks the other mattress and heard, too, the puffs of breath through her nose, the way he can tell that her bottom lip's bitten between her teeth, the way she makes that little tiny caught whining noise when she's getting close, the way he'll be hard as a tire iron with his arms folded under the pillow, trying his absolute damnedest to pretend he's asleep, and his eyes wide open in the dark of a motel room lit only by the green numbers on the clock radio to see the way the shape of her legs spread under the shiny polyester comforter and then the way her hips lift under the shiny lump of it and then the sound, a tiny grunt through her nose, the slick pumping squish going still, and then—his favorite part—this long sigh, like she's been holding up a weight and finally gets to let it down, her knees splaying wide-out and flat, the barest tiniest shine of light on her lip as she lets it out of her teeth, the heave of her chest where the blanket's rucked down, the way her head turns, toward him—

When he gets out of the shower she's dressed, kind of. Dad's boxers and a freshly-washed grey camisole. Hair loose and drying wavy over her shoulders, although she swipes it all over to one side, leaning over the stove, peering into their battered single pot. "Hungry?" she says, and then immediately snorts and says, "Dumb question."

"Ha," Sam says. The radio's on, the crappy local rock station that has way too many ads, but they play Metallica and AC/DC sometimes and Deanna says that's enough for her. "What are you making?"

"Oh, Sammy," Deanna says—leaning on the counter, smiling at him sidelong. Not hot, like she is for the guys at the bar, but something else. Sam's gut aches. "That'd spoil the surprise."

"Wouldn't want that," Sam says, trying for cool and somehow kind of landing on it, and Deanna winks at him. Winks. He takes a deep breath, and passes behind her to go to the fridge, and gets out two beers, and cracks them both. He hands one to Dee and bumps the cans together before she can object. "Try not to give us food poisoning, huh?"

Deanna lifts her chin, her eyes narrowing. Smiles, slow. "No promises," she says, and when they take a drink at the same time, her eyes stay steady on Sam.

*

"So," Deanna says, drawing it out slow, lips a plush teasing O. Sam raises his eyebrows, like, so what? Dee raises her eyebrows back, making fun of him. "So: Noelle." Sam groans and Deanna grins wide at him, leans forward. "Don't front, little brother. C'mon, spill. You make much ado about her nothing?"

"That doesn't even make sense," Sam says, but it's without much strength, and Deanna sticks her tongue out at him, still grinning.

So it's been a couple of beers, and then another one to make up for the pretty weird dinner—tomato rice soup with green beans stirred in is not something that's going to end up on fancy restaurant menus, put it that way—and they're sprawled on either end of the couch, the TV on the news in case there's anything Dee would have to care about but silent, the radio still playing—the top 40 now, and Sam got to see Deanna bounce around lip syncing to how she didn't want no scrubs, which he groaned and rolled his eyes through but to be honest was actually pretty funny—and his head's kind of swimmy, kind of heavy, his cheeks hot and his fingertips cold, although maybe that's because he's holding his—fourth?—can of Milwaukee's absolute best, pretending like everything's cool. Everything is cool. Four beers in he can't imagine how they'd be otherwise.

"Hellooo," Deanna sings. He blinks at her. "Ground control to Major Sammy? You in there?"

"Yes," Sam says. Dignified. Maybe. "Where else would I be?"

Deanna looks like she thinks something is very funny. Never a good sign. She leans forward, her elbow on the back of the couch, her knees spreading out. "N-O-E-L," she says. "Let me hear it. She cute?"

"She spells it with two Ls," Sam says, which makes Dee wrinkle her nose. "And—I don't know. I guess."

"You guess." She whaps his knee and then grabs his shin, waggling his leg back and forth. "Dude, you are a hot-blooded American male. You can do better than guess. Unless—" She squints at him, assessing. "Are you gay? Or—wait, your junk works, right?"

"Yes!" Sam says, and then, hastily— "No!" Dee snorts, taking a sip of her beer, and while she's mopping foam off her chin he wraps his arms around his knees, annoyed. "You suck."

"When they ask nice," Deanna says, and then pauses, her tongue pressed up against the back of her front teeth. Shining, pink. Sam looks at that and then away, at the TV. Weather this week will stay warm. Rain on Thursday. The weather guy has stupid gelled helmet hair. A soft warm grip on Sam's ankle, low. "Hey, Sammy."

Warm, and a little wet from the beer. It races up the nerves from Sam's ankle to his heart and then back south to his nuts, confusing, worrying. Good. "Noelle's cute," Sam says. He licks his lips. "Smart. She's on the volleyball team."

"Selling girl scout cookies, too, I bet," Deanna says. Her thumb skims up the inside of Sam's ankle, where there's that dip. Kinda ticklish, kinda not. "Didn't ask about her test grades, dweeb. What's she look like?"

Sam shrugs. "Tall? I guess. For a girl. Blondish hair. Skinny, kind of."

"She got good tits?"

When Sam turns his head Dee's really watching him. He chews on his bottom lip. She's still got her arm laid out along the back of the couch, holding her beer loose in long fingers, and her other hand around his ankle, scooched forward so she can reach—cleavage made even when she's not wearing a bra, the amulet he gave her spilling off-angled over the pressed-up white curve. Her eyes dark and kind of hard to see in just the TV-light, with the sun down and them not turning on any other lamps. He shrugs again, and then nods. Yeah, Noelle's boobs are okay.

"Yeah?" Deanna says. The tip of her tongue touches the center of her bottom lip. Shine. "What about her ass?"

"It's okay," Sam says. His voice sounds weird.

"You kiss her?" Deanna says, and then without waiting: "No, huh. But you want to, huh? Maybe after the library. Or before volleyball, with the uniform on, you dog."

Sam's never known why guys who want to have sex are called dogs. Deanna's thumb is working in little circles on the inside of his ankle and the skin there feels like it's on freaking fire. "You kiss Walt?" he says.

Her thumb stops. "Walt?"

Like it's the dumbest thing ever. Sam unfolds enough to take a drink from his can. Warm now, bitter, but it's something to do with his hands. "I think he wants to kiss you."

"Oh, you think," Deanna says, sarcastic. Sam takes another gulp, too quick, and has to stop himself from coughing like a dork. While his eyes water Deanna lets go of his ankle—a cold spot there that he regrets immediately—and leans over to the table, grabbing a can from the box, cracking it fresh. "Walt wants me to blow him under the desk in the manager's office. Good thing we're gonna be out of here before he works up the balls to ask."

She says it like, no big deal. Like, duh. Deanna drains the last of her previous can and drops it into the pile they're making on the carpet, and then leans back with the new beer tucked between her thighs, making a damp condensation spot on the thin grey fabric of the shorts. Sam drains his beer, too, and gets another, too, although he leaves his empty upright at least so it doesn't spill drops on the carpet. It takes some concentration; his balance is a little weird.

"Shit, we made a mess, huh?" Deanna says, while Sam leans doubled over his own knees, setting up all the cans like bowling pins. "Ruining all your hard work."

"Don't want you to get mad at me again," Sam says, which is kinda supposed to be making fun of her but he also kinda means it. All the cans upright and he flops back onto the couch, full beer resting on his stomach. "Plus, like. You've been all—nice. I didn't know vacuuming would get me all these perks." He lifts the beer in a little toast before he takes a sip. One of Deanna's cheeks sucks in before she toasts him back, takes a swallow too. Sam smiles at her, feeling weirdly light in his chest, even if things are just super—weird. "I get anything else if I keep doing all the laundry? Gonna let me drive?"

"In your dreams," Deanna says, immediately.

"What about… let me pick the music?"

"You know the rules, dingus." She lets her right foot drop off the couch, thigh stretching out long, wide. "I'll keep you fed. Consider yourself lucky, punk. But…" Smiling at him, crooked and small. Beer still between her legs. "That really was cool, man. I know I was bitching and all, but. I didn't really expect you to do anything."

Sometimes that's the kind of thing that makes him feel like a baby, getting a pat on the head. This time it's—different. Sam feels heat rising up in the center of his cheeks. "Homework doesn't take that long," he says. "Figured you were right, I could manage the laundry or whatever too."

"Wait, wait," Deanna says, eyes opening wide, "I was right?" Sam rolls his eyes and flicks a drop of beer at her, which she promptly returns with interest, and when he's wiping scattered foam off his cheek, grinning, she says, "Sounds like a deal to me," and then, in a different voice—"Although if you're gonna be in my stuff, guess I ought to find a different hiding spot, huh?"

Half a second to remember what she means and then the heat in his cheeks flames up over his whole body. Lurid pink. Big? Even two days gone he can't quite remember. "No big deal, remember? Where else would you keep it, anyway—glovebox?"

She snorts. "Get pulled over and hand that out to the cop with the license and reg? Yeah, guess not."

"Where'd you even get it?"

"You never heard of a sex store?" Deanna says, tipping her head. "Thought you were all grown-up now. Give me that beer back, Kid Icarus—"

He pulls it back out of her mimed grab and she ends up leaning forward toward him again, his drawn-up feet practically tucked up between her spread legs. That half-circle of damp is still there on the cotton, high up on her thigh. "I meant where. Or like—when, I guess."

"Back in Houston. So—what, four, five months ago?" She shrugs, rests her beer on his knee like it's a cupholder. "You really haven't done laundry in a while, huh."

"So, you…" She raises her eyebrows at him like a dare. He swigs his beer, clears his throat. His fingertips are cold. "I don't know. It's kinda weird. Like, when the girls at school talk sometimes, it's like—they talk like it hurts, or something. Like they just do it because their boyfriends want to."

This from Jackie Martinette and Laura Kennedy, who had a full whispered gossip session on the subject in study hall while Sam tried desperately to pretend like he was on another planet. Bad enough to spring wood at home in bed while Deanna walked around in her underwear after a shower; truly mortifying at school when any second he'd have to get up and walk to second period biology.

"You think girls aren't getting anything out of it?" Sam lifts a shoulder, really not sure. In porn sometimes they shriek. He doesn't associate much good with shrieking. Deanna smiles at him, sort of patronizing but also warm, friendly. Like she's sharing good news. "Sammy, if you know what you're doing it's all kinds of good. When you're hot for it and it's go time?" She makes this low purry sound, deep in her throat, her eyes half-lidded.

Sam swallows. "Go time?" He's amazed his voice doesn't sound weird.

"Girls get horny just like guys, you know," Deanna says. She licks her lips, shining flushed. The TV bursts blue-yellow color over her cheeks, the rise of her chest as she takes a deep breath. "Harder to tell, I guess. But if it's go time a girl should be so wet you just slide right in, you know? Even if you didn't eat her out first. I mean, that's how it works with me."

Sam's so hard he's dizzy. He drains his beer, lets it slide down to the pile on the carpet, hooks his hands around his own ankles, keeping his knees together so she can't see. "What do you think about?" he says. The air's thin, hot. Deanna blinks at him, slow. "When you're—using it. Like—guys, or…?"

"Brad Pitt in Thelma & Louise," Deanna says, and Sam laughs, not expecting to. She grins at him and her face is pink, too. "Yeah, guys. But not even like—specific guys. Just… what feels good, you know? When a guy holds my tits right—not squeezing hard, but just…" She tucks her beer up against her crotch and cups one boob, pushing it up high and full through her camisole, fingers splayed wide, her thumb brushing over her nipple where Sam can see it hard and poking through the cotton. Her other breast curving plush, that nipple also round and tight, and Sam reaches out and copies her, sliding his palm up her ribs and feeling the sudden rise of them and spidering his fingers wide over the soft heaviness, shifting to hold it up high to match, his thumb glancing over the nipple and it's—oh, rigid as a bullet but giving somehow too, tilting under how he sweeps back and forth, swollen hot. Her cleavage looks incredible, the amulet squished between both boobs like she's wearing a push-up bra, the cord disappearing between them. He imagines very suddenly licking there, swiping up with his tongue in the dark shadow like he's imagined licking a girl's pussy, except he'd keep going, lick up into the hollow of her throat, lick up over her chin and push his tongue into her mouth and see what that was like, see how it tasted, and he's thinking that, rolling her nipple over and over under his thumb, when he sees that her lips are parted and she's staring at him, chest heaving, and he's—god, he wants to kiss her. He wants to very badly.

"Like that?" he says, thin. She nods, quick. He holds his ankle very tightly with the other hand. "What—what else? Do you think about."

The tip of her tongue touches the center of her top lip. Sam's balls lurch. Deanna's eyelids dip but don't close, and she says, "A guy fingering me. But not like most guys do it. Stabbing in like they're trying to buttonmash in Street Fighter. There was this dude in Buffalo—he got me off over the top of my jeans, just rubbing right, steady. Got me so wet it soaked through. Thought I was gonna marry him."

The can of beer's right there, on the y-front of the old boxer-briefs. Sam's breathing through his mouth, lips drying. "You fuck him?"

Deanna's ears are dark red. "Yeah," she says. A breath. "In the bar bathroom, over the sink. That's a good one, when I'm using the dildo. I was so wet. Just thinking about it—swear to god, like someone turned on a faucet in my pussy, Sammy."

He pushes forward and she grabs the beer can, holds it right there for some reason, so it doesn't spill when Sam crams his fingers between the lukewarm wet tin and the cotton, curving over—soft too, warm too, hot as he pushes his fingers down, when she spreads her thigh wider and her hips tip forward, crushing his hand between the couch cushion and her pussy and the cotton that, fuck, is wet, sticky, and he pushes his fingers up, where it gives, and—and—

"Sammy," she whispers, and he looks up and he's, oh, squeezing her tit hard, hard enough that when he startles and lets go there's a ghost-white impression of his fingers above the line of fabric that floods red right away, and he takes in a breath to say—nothing, absolutely nothing comes to mind, but it doesn't matter because she grabs his wrist and pushes his fingers right up against her tit again, and then drops the beer over the side of the couch, letting it thunk to the carpet, glugging, and curves her hand over his hand between her legs, pressing it harder against herself, groaning, a sound he's only heard in the dark.

His head's thick, like oxygen's not getting in. Her hips grind in and he presses up hard, with the heel of his hand and his fingertips, and she shudders so maybe it's good. He pulls at the neck of the camisole and it yanks to one side but Dee shakes her head, shifts—Sam yanks his hand away, but she only pushes forward, up on her knees—still holding his fingers up against her pussy—and then reaches down and pulls the camisole off over her head, entirely, so she's bare from the waist up except for her amulet, her tits white and full, her nipples blushy red, the skin around them drawn up tight. He grips one in just the way she showed him and drags his thumb around the bare skin, rolling the nipple without the barrier of cotton, and she makes this tiny little noise high in her throat, like she can't help it, so hot that Sam leans forward and slurps the nipple into his mouth so she'll make it again.

"Fuck," she says, the f drawn out like she didn't mean to. Her hand on his head while he mouths at her boob, licking and then opening his mouth wide and sucking hard, so she hisses and grips his hair tight, and so he learns to roll it under his tongue, suckling, like a popsicle he wants to last. Her thighs clamp around his wrist and then open, and he rubs her whole crotch front to back, not knowing what's best, from the y-front down to where she's sticky and all the way to her ass, squeezing where she's soft there, too, pulling her in except his knees are in the way. He squirms, pretzeled up tight like he is, and Deanna kneels up high so he can unfold and then his legs are between her thighs. She grabs his wrist again and that's fine, he lets her push and get his palm seated on the hard ridge of bone, his fingers squishing around in the wet cotton where she's so soft, riding the seam of the boxers back and forth, finding where—oh shit—yeah, where he can push, a gap, which must really be her pussy, where the dildo goes, where that guy from Buffalo was, where Sam could—

She grips his hair, pulls his mouth away from her tit. He comes off gasping. Flickery light from the TV but it's dark, dark, blood pulled up into the skin from how he was working there. Her hand goes to his jaw, her thumb sliding over his mouth—wet—smelling like… He licks and it tastes like—salt. Salt and something tangy, what's heavy in the air, stronger than the smell of the beer spilling onto the carpet and how he feels drenched in sweat, this—incredible thing, addictive, better than anything. A flex, against his buried fingertips, where she's soaked, and he finally looks up to see her staring at him, at his mouth. Her thumb drags over his lip again and he leans in to her other, paler tit, slurps the nipple in and cups his hand hard over her pussy and wraps his arm around her waist, holding her warm and close, drunk. His head swims but it doesn't matter—she keeps hold of his hair, keeping him up against her chest, and covers his hand on her pussy, pressing in this rhythm that's easy to follow, clutching hard and grinding and rolling her hips into his fingers, her breath fast and hot and puffing over his ear, everything between them getting sweaty, tense, her grip over his hand hurting almost and he'd worry about hurting her except clearly that's not an issue. He drags his teeth over her boob, sucking hard on the squishy softness, his tongue exploring the tight wrinkled rim around the nipple, and squeezes her ass with his free hand, and his wrist hurts so he flexes his forearm, grips the front ridge of bone over her pussy with his thumb, and Deanna jerks against him, curves in, holds his hand hard and still up against herself, and she's totally silent and even her breath is held and he lets go of her tit and looks up and she's staring at him open-mouthed. He rubs his fingertips against her crotch, squeezing through the boxers, and it's only then that she makes a little sound, jerked out of her belly, and she bends down—he blinks, not sure—but she just sinks down to his shoulder, her lips spread wide on the side of his neck, her breath heaving out of her like she just finished a five-mile run.

Her thighs spread over his. Their hands caught together, cupped wet. Sam's nuts hurt he's so hard and he doesn't know what to do. He wants her nipple back in his mouth, wants to put his mouth on her pussy and taste that tangy smell right at the source, wants to crawl behind the couch and jerk off with his fist between his teeth, fast and hard as he possibly can. Wants—

Her hand, on his crotch, through his shorts. He jerks, whole-body, like when Dee was showing him how to replace an outlet a few rental houses ago and they didn't bother with flipping the breaker. His boner's popping stupid-obvious so it's easy for her to grip it with her whole hand and it feels—god!—warm, even through the double-layer of the polyester and his cotton boxers, and firm, squeezing hard at first and then feeling the shape, from the base to the head. "Jeez," she murmurs, and he squeezes his eyes closed, every part of his body feeling shivery, strange, oversensitized. "When'd that happen?"

"What?" he manages. She smells so good he can't stand it—wants to hide, wants to disappear, wants to grip her ass and drag her down and rub off against her like he used to against the mattress, when he was a kid and didn't know how to jerk off right, only she'd be so soft, sweet, wet—

"You got a big dick," Deanna says, soft, her head dipping down, her cheek against Sam's cheek. "Fuck, that's—thick. All grown up, huh?"

He shakes his head, confused, and she laughs very softly but not mean, not like she can laugh, and says, "God—" and pushes his chest, bears him back down against the arm of the couch, and he goes because he doesn't know what else to do and he puts his hand over his mouth—oh oh oh the hand that was on her pussy, his fingers sliding wet, and he sucks them in, bites his own skin, tasting, the smell and tang clutching up his throat and his foggy head. Deanna groans for some reason and pushes up his shirt, her fingers skimming over his belly, on the sparse hair that's started to trail down from his navel, and she—lifts off his legs, her weight and heat disappearing, and he opens his eyes to find the world gone all smeary, dark still but the light from the TV splintering weird and wet across the ceiling, and when he looks down she's on her knees between his knees, her fingers cupping his balls through his shorts, squeezing the shaft, and she bends down like she's going to—her mouth open, like she's going to—and Sam's toes curl and his thighs spasm and he comes, hips jerking up into her grip, creaming up the inside of his shorts, pulsing, shocked.

His heart thuds in his throat. He breathes hard around his fingers, still in his mouth, and drags them out finally, curling wet and pruny against his chin. Deanna lets go, eyes at first pinned there at his crotch and then flicking up at him dark and wide-startled, her lips an O. Sam blinks at her and pulls one of his knees up, in, and somehow that makes her flinch, and she sits up high, back on her heels, arms folding over her chest and hiding her tits, her eyes still big, going all over his face.

Deanna laughs. Again. High and breathy, fake. Still not mean but—"Man, couple beers and we're crazy, huh?" she says, brittle and fast, and Sam digs his heels into the couch and scooches away, as far as he can, his back pressed all the way against the couch arm, his brain feeling like it's sloshing in acid. Deanna smiles at him, wide and with a lot of teeth, and swivels and stands, kicking a beer can, stooping quick to pick up her camisole, tugging it over her head, yanking it back into place. Sam blinks and wet runs down his cheek so he has to scrub the back of his hand over it, smearing. "Guess we really are hard-up," Deanna's saying, while Sam folds back over his own knees, stomach doing a slow horrible somersault. "Gotta work on your game, get that Noelle girl to go for it sometime."

"Dee," Sam says, but it's barely voiced, and Deanna shakes her head and rolls right on, walking off to the kitchen like it's nothing, saying, "Anyway—we screwed up the carpet—better get something for that before the beer soaks in—"

Sam's gonna hurl. He—oh, he really is—and he unfolds off the couch and his legs stagger but he makes it the half-dozen steps to the bathroom, to his knees, stomach lurching, eyes burning. Dinner and beer and everything else. He shudders, clutching the sides of the bowl in the dark. Sits there, miserable, for…

Faint touch to his back. He makes a weird sound, spits. Reaches up and flushes, and sits back on his knees, and his face is sweaty, hot, and Deanna's not in the bathroom with him but there's a cup on the side of the sink with water in it. He swishes the taste out of his mouth, spits again, drains the rest. When he gathers his brain together and stands back up he sways and there's—sticky wet in his shorts, cold and sludgy, and he leans his shoulder into the doorway and sees that Dee's cleaned up the beer cans and there's a towel on the carpet by the couch. He gets more water in the kitchen, drinks it down in cool stomach-filling swallows that make his gut slosh but in a way where he doesn't feel like it's gonna chuck up again, and when he goes to the bedroom—she's on her mattress, lying on her side, blanket tugged up to her shoulder. He stands between the two beds for a second, uncertain, until she turns over, her back to the room. "Go to bed, drunkie," she says, quiet in the dark, and he licks his lips and crawls onto his own mattress on his stomach, folding his arms under his pillow, staring across at her until the dragging sloshing tide in his head pulls him down, undertow sucking at his whole body, drowning.

In the morning her bed is empty. Sam's head hurts like someone took a sledgehammer to it in the middle of the night. His boxers stick crusty against his pubes. He takes a shower, nauseated and aching and wondering if it's possible to be poisoned by five beers. Coffee already made—he drinks a cup and then pours a second, miserable, and then the front door opens and Deanna's standing there, fully dressed and eyes wide and bright, and she says, "Rise and shine, wonderboy," like a chirpy bird, and then, "C'mon, I'll drive you to school," and Sam says, "I feel like crap," and she says, "That’s what happens when you drink with the big dogs, but no excuses, come on," and so he puts on sneakers and gets his backpack and loads himself into the passenger side of the Impala and slumps against the window while she drives, the two of them not talking, the radio on low to morning shock-jock crap. Wondering if this is what it's always going to be. This sick dragging awful, at the base of his skull and in his gut, making the morning into something that has to be endured, like every single day from this one to when he's dead will be—this. The Impala pulls up smooth to the drop-off area, muscling ahead of a champagne-colored sedan, and Sam sighs, and goes to open the door, and Deanna says, "Hang on."

He looks at her straight-on. First time, really, all morning, the humiliation feeling like it's coming off him like radiation, like if they had an EMF meter for it the thing would be shrieking. She looks like she always does. Part of the problem. Deanna's cheek sucks in and she looks in the rear-view, and then she meets his eyes, and her expression is—Sam doesn't know. She looks into his eyes and then at his mouth, and then at his hand on the door for some reason, and then she shakes her head, and touches her own lips, and then grips the steering wheel tight with both hands. "Knock 'em dead, Sammy," she says, looking out at the road.

First period, study hall. He drops his bag under the desk and drops his head onto his folded arms. The bell ringing hurts. Laura Kennedy and Jackie Martinette start whispering behind him, about the date Jackie went on this weekend, and he folds his arms over his head, shuts it out. He feels like he took a beating from a werewolf, but that's not the worst part. For some reason the thing that keeps repeating in his head, and what lasts all day, through English where he ignores Noelle and through AP Stats where he doesn't answer a single question and through the lunch he doesn't eat and through World History, staring through the review slides for final exams coming up in a few weeks, is how Dee laughed. High, and weird, and like she'd done something horribly embarrassing, like there was no way to live it down and so you just had to laugh, because what other choice did you have?

When he gets home the living room smells like stale beer. Deanna's not there. In the fridge, a styrofoam box with spaghetti and meatballs and no note, and he eats it by himself and does his homework and goes to bed alone, and she's not there the next morning, and she's not there the next afternoon when he gets home, either, and it's not until Wednesday morning that he wakes up and she's sitting crosslegged on the mattress across the room from him in the clear morning light and she says, before he's even registered that she's really there and what it means, "Dad's coming home."

He blinks muzzily and sits up and she's looking at him with her fingers knotted in her lap, her lips red and her eyes red, too, and then she gets up and walks out of the room. He watches her go, robbed of any other option.

#wincest #my writing #happy wincest wednesday #praying that read more works properly #anyway yeah #i have about ~5k more of writing to do #so ideally that'll come by next week #but at the moment just-- #trying a slightly different writing mode here #hope that someone reads it lol

[prolifeproliberty]

Reminder that the U.S. public education system was intentionally built to produce compliant factory workers, not to educate citizens.

There is no “reforming” the system without completely rebuilding it from the ground up.

The Founding Fathers wanted publicly available education so that the citizenry would be educated, literate, and critical thinkers. This is not what we gave today.

Children are shuffled through an assembly line in batches based on age, not ability or achievement. They are taught to respond to bells telling them when to start, when to stop, when to take a break, when to eat, and when to go home.

Fixing this system would mean reimagining it. There’s no way of doing that on a large scale, and even local examples of schools trying “innovative” things seem to still be fresh paint on a house with a rotten foundation.

To start with, children should be moving at their own pace in each subject. A 10-year-old child could be further ahead in math and further behind in reading, and that’s okay. They would work with students of their same ability level for each subject.

If a child is spending too long at one level of one subject, they may need more one-on-one support from a teacher who specializes in that area. They definitely should not be just passed through for the sake of graduating “on time.”

You might say “aren’t schools already doing this?” Not really. You might see schools with accelerated or remedial math classes, maybe even reading. But those are half-measures, and kids are still pushed forward without being ready - because they “need to graduate.” Not to mention the kids that are held back because “we don’t have a program past x level.”

The trouble begins in Kindergarten. Kids are expected to meet certain standards before moving on - a level of proficiency with letters, numbers, and some basic reading skills. Kids who are “a little behind” are pushed forward - after all, kids learn at their own pace, right?

Then in first grade, the kid who was “a little behind” is not ready for the first lessons, and gets frustrated and confused. Imagine trying to learn addition when you don’t really know your numbers. So now the kid who was a little behind is now quite a bit behind, but likely not far enough to ring alarm bells for intervention.

Now in second grade that same kid is a whole grade level behind - but that’s within tolerance levels for our current system. Maybe there will be an intervention teacher popping in a couple times a week - which helps when she’s there, and doesn’t help when she’s not. She would come every day, but she’s busy with the 4th graders preparing them for the state test.

Then in third grade - because the kid has to move on with his peers to avoid “social problems” - he is now 1.5-2 years behind his classmates. Now the teacher is concerned - remember, it’s new teacher every year who spends the first couple months getting to know the kids and getting beginning of the year data on their academic levels. The teacher is told to provide intervention or accommodation for some period - in my experience, 6-8 weeks - before any further steps can be taken. The teacher also has 10 other students with needs in different areas, and the chances of her keeping up with 6-8 weeks of intervention for one kid, taking usable data, and keeping track of that data - is low.

So the kid goes on to 4th grade. Now we have standardized testing (this of course varies by state - my state actually begins this in 3rd grade). The beginning of the year assessment scores are alarming - NOW the kid gets intervention. Maybe testing. He’s diagnosed with a learning disability. Maybe he has dyslexia, maybe it’s an “unspecified” learning disability - and now he should get services.

But now he’s 2-3 years behind. And worse, he has given up. He spent the last 3-4 years knowing he was “behind” - he feels dumb. His peers are smarter then him, he thinks. No matter how hard he works, they’re ahead - some of them seemingly without even trying. School is easy for them. So the interventionist pulls him out of class 3 times a week to work on things his classmates learned 2 years ago. He does what’s required - maybe his intervention teacher offers incentives like stickers or tickets for prizes. But he has no desire to work on this beyond what he has to do. His classmates ask why he keeps getting pulled out.

All of this comes from a failure to address the small delay in Kindergarten, and from the lack of a system to address his individual needs and support his teachers who are overwhelmed by other similar stories.

What you end up with is kids getting to my history class in 7th grade, reading at a 2nd or 3rd grade level. Worse, you get kids graduating from high school reading below an 8th grade level - but they get pushed through anyway.

A better system would look something like this:

Before starting school, kids would take a pre-test to determine where they are in reading and math already - some kids come to kindergarten already knowing how to read basic words, others are still learning their alphabet.

Kids would be placed in groups or classes based on their current ability for each subject. They would move ahead to the next level only when they had passed their current level - not when the “school year” ends.

Kids would graduate when they were ready - maybe “early,” maybe “late,” but always with the actual knowledge and skills they’re supposed to have.

Here’s the challenge: this method is harder. It’s hard to manage on a large scale. It’s more complex.

You know where it works?

In a small community school or homeschool.

We keep wanting to “fix” our bloated, massive, national public school system. Even on a state level, no agency can really manage the education of millions of students.

Even thousands of students is too many for one single system.

The ideal situation would be neighborhood schools, a couple hundred students max, each operating in the way that makes sense for their students and the families they serve. Funded and supported by the families that send their kids there - and decisions made by that community.

Guess what - you don’t have to wait for this to magically happen on its own. You also don’t have to “vote the right people into office.”

Creating this system starts with families, and it’s already happening - they might be called micro schools or homeschool co-ops, but they’re popping up all over, more so now in response to how public schools mismanaged the COVID situation.

Some parents are homeschooling entirely. Others are doing most learning at home, and signing kids up for “a la carte” classes in certain subjects. Others have their kids entirely in a micro school, “learning pod”, or other private school that meets their needs.

As far as voting goes, is there a policy that would help?

Yes. It’s called School Choice. Tax credits that allow parents to spend their kids’ education dollars where they make sense.

Bottom line: get your kids out of public school, and take a good long look at what your individual child needs. Then find the school, co-op, or homeschool curriculum that meets those needs. It might be your kid’s own personal blend of available options. It won’t be the same for your neighbor’s kid, or even for your other children.

Your job as parent is to make those decisions for your children. Stop giving your parental authority to the state.

[thefae-journal]

in the reflection of her glasses

fandom: Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies ship: Faccivinos pov: second person, Olivia

word count: 2,047 warnings: n/a

summary: It’s not like Jane to fall asleep during a meeting. A Pink Ladies hang-out, or whatever Jane calls it. Some silly thing. Something oddly specific.

Something so Janey.

Also on AO3

Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies masterlist masterlist

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She fell asleep with her glasses on. Closed eyes behind them, and the face that wears them is relaxed. Easy because her mind isn’t running in circles, stressing over her campaign. The only sounds she makes are little snores and slow breaths that match the movements of her chest. In and out. In and out. 

Pieces of her loose hair sweep in front of her face. As you’ve watched her for the past hour, lying beside her on her bed, you notice things about her that you haven’t really seen before, like sometimes, she wrinkles her nose—ticklish, or she’s dreaming. 

You so badly want to reach forward to move those strands of hair away, accidentally have your fingers brush along her cheek, but you would risk waking her. She should wake up on her own. Even though you’re a tad bit worried about her. 

It’s not like Jane to fall asleep during a meeting. A Pink Ladies hang-out, or whatever Jane calls it. Some silly thing. Something oddly specific. 

Something so Janey. 

She caught you at your locker before third period today and talked of plans for a Pink Ladies presidential campaign meeting (was that what she called it?) at her house. She already invited Nancy and Cynthia, and although you had your own plans to sit in the park after school and read, Pink Ladies come first. And, being completely honest, you can never say no to Jane. 

Gathered around Jane in her bedroom, surrounded by pink walls with painted clouds, the four of you brainstormed ideas, of ways to get her platform off the ground. You’ve done buttons, spent all night staining them with your lipstick. What was next? 

Cupcakes?

No, cookies. 

With ‘Vote Pink’ written on them!

Do any of you even know how to decorate cookies?

Variations of ‘no’ and shaking heads filled the space.

Maybe something simpler?

Rydell’s newspaper? Olivia could —

Cynthia. 

Nevermind. Maybe fliers? 

That’s not a bad idea. We can pass them out at the football game!

Oh, and at the Frosty Palace!

It was settled, then. The Pink Ladies were going to make fliers. Nancy volunteered to design them, her hand shooting into the air when the question was asked. 

A half hour, and that was it. But just as you were about to stand up from Jane’s bed, she grabbed your hand and guided you back down. Conversation started again. Not of the campaign, not of Rydell, not of Jane’s opponent. Instead, you talked about life things. Nancy’s new designs, Cynthia’s journeys as a thespian. Jane being Jane. It was nothing she hadn’t told you before. 

Another half hour mixed with laughter and words after words after words, and you spot Jane sleeping next to you, all curled up. You didn’t realize you were watching her, staring at her, until Nancy cleared her throat. 

“Jane’s asleep,” you whispered, and gestured to her. 

Cynthia and Nancy leaned over. “Oh. Long day?” Cynthia asked. 

“I don’t know.” 

Nancy crossed her arms. “You were with her all day, weren’t you?” 

“You were staring at her,” Cynthia said. “Almost—”

Nancy let out a dramatic gasp, like you would expect from her. “Mesmerized.” She and Cynthia exchanged a look. “Focused.”

Cynthia nodded. “Absorbed.” 

You hugged yourself, because, for a split second, you allowed yourself to crumble, and your friends saw it. All of it. Well, your friends, minus Jane. You needed to build that wall back up. If you could even build it back up. Collect each piece and place them together. Connecting perfectly, like it never collapsed in the first place. No cracks left behind. No cracks. 

So what could you say? Because they couldn't know that Janey had opened your heart. Pushed each and every last brick down, leaving you defenseless. But not in a bad way. In a way that would make it harder to resist the vulnerability. To let other people in, too far deep.

“No, I— I just wanted to make sure that she was okay,” you told them. Finally, your mind was slowing down enough to pick out words and phrases to form something coherent. And it wasn’t like it wasn’t true. You were making sure that she was okay. Maybe you got a little bit… distracted. 

Nancy and Cynthia didn’t seem convinced by your response, but they let it pass. “Should we wake her up?” Cynthia asked. 

No.  

The two of them left soon after—Cynthia had promised her dad she would be home for dinner and Nancy had a shift at the Frosty Palace. 

And you? You said you would stay with Jane. I don’t want her to freak out when she wakes up and no one is here. I don’t… want to leave her, not by herself. Once you walked Cynthia and Nancy out, you joined Jane on the bed, lay down on the opposite side, and slipped her blue (bear?) plushie into her arms. 

You take them off, her glasses, and fold them. Gentle and careful. You place them on the bedside table on the side you lie on. Somehow, you manage not to disturb her. When you turn back to her, she’s still asleep. Odd, knowing that, for Jane, just the smallest of movements or sounds can wake her. 

At the Pink Ladies sleepover last weekend, if any of you woke up, she woke up too. Even the rustling of blankets disrupts her sleep. You don’t know how she sleeps through the night.

Having not gotten a single minute of sleep, she told all of you the next day that she can’t do sleepovers anymore. A rule she created so she wouldn’t end up sleep deprived, no focus or attention lost. No falling asleep in class. 

On Monday, she did fall asleep during Algebra, her favorite class. She came to you after the bell rang, upset with herself. You closed your locker and met her gaze. Through her glasses, her eyes were full of regret and shame. 

Blaming herself for falling asleep in class. 

And again during a Pink Ladies meeting. Hang-out. Get-together. Whatever. 

You settle into a more comfortable position, your arm tucked under your head, and her open, tired eyes greet you. She blinks a few times and rubs the sleep out of her eyes with her knuckles, probably confused. Very confused. About why you’re lying beside her. Where the other Pink Ladies are. What happened. Definitely about what happened.

She goes to speak, parting her lips, but your fingers brush them before words can tumble out. “It’s okay,” you say. “Cynthia and Nancy couldn’t stay long.” You move your fingers away from her lips slowly. “They had other things to attend to, but I couldn’t leave you here by yourself.”

Jane nods, processing what you’ve said. You can tell—the gears in her brain are trying their best to function. She’s not awake yet. “Why didn’t you wake me? Wait.” She touches her face, panic flitting across her features. “Where—?” 

“On the table, on my side.” 

“Your… side?” 

You chuckle. “Don’t worry. I didn’t scratch them.” 

She nods again and glances down at the plushie in her arms, which she moves to the floor. She doesn’t let it fall, but stretches to lower it to the floor as if it would break if she were to drop it. 

God, she’s so—

“You didn’t have to stay.” 

“Do you sleep with your glasses on a lot?” 

“Yeah. I forget that they’re on my face sometimes.”

So Janey. 

So… 

No. No. You should go. Jane is awake now. She didn’t freak out. You did your job. You did what you told the others you would. Why stay any longer? 

You don’t need to, but something is nagging you, keeping you here, an anchor too heavy to lift back to the surface. An anchor that happens to have the name ‘Jane’ engraved at the center, in its heart. 

Your heart.

You can’t move from your spot on the bed. You can’t peel your eyes away from her. And you think that… maybe, she’s doing more than just bringing your walls down. Just by being in front of you. Just by simply existing. She has you captured, wrapped around the frames of her glasses. The ones that lay on the nightstand behind you.

On your side. 

Your side. 

“Did you, um, have another sleepover?” you ask. You just want your mind to stop.

“What?” 

“You fell asleep, so I thought—” 

“No, I was up all night studying. I had a really big test today.” Jane flops on to her back and stares up at the ceiling. Her arms cross over her stomach. “Really important, actually. And you know my mom wouldn’t let me have a sleepover on a school night.” 

Of course. “A test might be important, Jane, but…” You rest your hand on her arm, right by her shoulder. “...but sleep is just as important, if not more important.” You pause. “I really care about you.” 

She looks at you, shocked. She didn’t think so? Know so? 

“You care about me?” 

“Yeah, obviously. You’re…” My best friend. 

No. Far more than that. 

“I’m what?” 

Something special. The same words that left Jane’s lips when you locked the Soc boys in Dot’s dad’s study. The way those words made your heart skip. You remember that feeling. Like you swallowed a bunch of butterflies. You feel it now, but not only in your heart. It’s in your chest, too. The heat present in your cheeks. How right it feels when you hold her hand. Touch her shoulder. When you’re right next to her. 

Not just something special. Everything. 

Jane Facciano is everything. 

She faces you, completely, back to lying on her side, her head propped up by her hand. “Olivia? I’m what?” 

You try to speak, but nothing comes out. Words tied to the back of your throat. They’re unmoving. 

Hesitant, you tuck her hair behind her ear. The same hair that hung in front of her face as she slept. For a moment, your fingers dance over her cheek and the skin right by her hair line. You linger, and each second becomes longer, heavier. As if the earth’s rotation is slowing down. As if time is coming to a stop. And Jane… Jane has no idea. 

Yet, she leans into it. Eyes closed, she hums, a vibration of her lips you so wish to— “Liv.” 

Kiss. 

Can girls kiss girls?  

Your face is so close to hers that your breath touches it, a puff of warm air on warm skin. The pink of her cheeks. Like the pink of her lips you inch towards. 

You don’t care. Your lips press to the corner of her mouth, then you pull back and look at her for anything. Anything, but disgust. Hatred. Anger. What you receive is blank. An empty expression that you can’t decipher. The longer you’re in this unmoving silence, the more your chest tightens. The more you forget how to breathe. The more you drown in worry. The more you internally kick yourself for doing that. Ruining something so beautiful with something so stupid. It wasn’t a full kiss, but it was still beyond what friends do. 

And what if that scared her? What if you scared her? 

You lower your hand from her face and sit up, readying yourself to leave. Straightening out your skirt, fixing your hair. Dirt rests on your tongue, and you can’t wait to go home and scratch it all off and hope that it never returns. 

But you won’t have to. She grabs your wrist. She keeps you from leaving, again. You sit back down in front of her with a sigh. She doesn’t say a word, and instead, does what you thought she wouldn’t. 

Jane threads her fingers through your hair and guides your lips until they collide with hers. They mesh together like puzzle pieces, pink and red puzzle pieces. It’s so perfect and right, and your head fills with clouds, like the ones on her walls. Relief and joy flood through you. So much joy. 

You giggle, a teary giggle—she does too, as you come apart. Only to be brought back together, in each other’s arms. She buries her head in your shoulder. “You’re Jane,” you finally whisper. “My Jane.” 

#rise of the pink ladies #grease rise of the pink ladies #pink ladies #rotpl #olivia x jane #faccivinos #olivia valdovinos #jane facciano #fanfiction #fanfic #writer

[onlybonesleft]

shore leave of learning | closed

@ensnchekov

Leonard sighed deeply as he sank into the couch in the temporarily provided quarters for him. He was tired, but happy--or at least as happy as he could be. They were finally on Earth for an extended period. It had been too long since his feet touch good ol' Terra Firma. The rest of the crew was heading in all sorts of directions since this was the first time 'home' in awhile.

He was glad that the crew would get time to relax and reconnect with family or maybe start one--they were here for awhile while the Silver Lady got herself some much TLC from the StarFleet engineers and mechanics. Scotty had been nearly buzzing with excitement.

But when all was said and done, he had no family to reconnect with, not really. Jocelyn and Joanna were on a globe trotting excursion of their own with Jocelyn's new husband; he had really only contacted his mother to see if the cottage they had owned when he was a kid was still there and if he could swing by to collect the keys. Thankfully it was still in the McCoy name and his mom even asked him if he'd be willing to fix up a few things around the place.

Len ran a hand through his hair, even as he tilted his head back, resting on the cushions. His relationship with his mother had been a bit strained since everything had gone to hell in a hand basket during his father's decline. They were at least amicable, and Leonard knew that she loved him in her own way, just as he still loved her even she had said some rather cutting things to him over the years.

"Enough of that maudlin shit," he muttered and sat back up with a groan. He needed to pack his shit. Sure, the shuttle didn't leave for another day and a half, and the crew had a celebratory welcome-back-to-Earth party planned for a little later that day before everyone went their separate ways. Never hurt to be prepared though, and perhaps he could head out earlier if a space on a shuttle opened up.

Later that day at aforementioned party, Len sipped at his drink while he took in the smiles and laughter of the crew. It was good to see them in such high spirits--and that he wouldn't be in charge of taking care of their shenanigan induced injuries for awhile. A deeper part of him knew that the next few weeks would be lonely because he hadn't agreed to go with Jim and Spock--but he'd just be third wheeling and it wasn't really something he wanted to do with his free time.

But even if it wasn't his intention from the beginning, Leonard had made friends with the crew and he could be honest enough to say he'd miss them (not to mention he gave one hell of a ship wide message that claimed fire and brimstone if they came back with an overabundance of STDs or STIs). He didn't want his first few days back treating things that were easily preventable, damnit!

He shook his head with a chuckle and noticed a certain ensign by himself for once tonight. It had seemed Chekov was fairly popular, and Leonard couldn't help but be curious of the the youngster's plans for this break. Bones was such he'd have gotten a few offers to hang out or make plans of his own. 'Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back,' Len thought as he meandered over to Chekov.

"Great party tonight, dontcha agree, kid?" asked Leonard when he was close enough to not be shouting at the lad. "Doin' anythin' fun for the break? Visiting a secret lover that we don't know about?" he joked lightly. "Or doin' what most of us are doing and just relaxing and hanging out with friends and family we haven't seen in person in ages?"

#i'd apologize for the length but i haven't felt so inspired to write this much in a long time and it made me happy #ensnchekov

[randomvarious]

2 Unlimited - "Here I Go" 1995 Eurodance / Eurohouse

So, yesterday, we had Belgian-Dutch dance project 2 Unlimited at their saddest, with their lame Euroreggae-pop hit, "No One," but today we have them at quite possibly their scariest, with "Here I Go," which sees them back on the dancefloor in order to catchily contemplate their potential and very literal descent into hell! 😈😱

And really, the only way their songs could've ever had some semi-coherent theme to them like this in the first place is if rapper Ray Slijngaard supplied bars that consistently stayed on some kind of topic, which he hadn't really done much of on any of 2 Unlimited's prior singles. But on the group's third album, Real Things, you started to see their songs acquiring, like, maybe, a quarter-inch of depth to them, as they tried to make music about, well...real things...😅.

There's no way out, man you try to escape Concentrate your mind cause it might just break Into half, crack down fast I keep my face straight no need to laugh I did some right, I did some wrong I regret these things, but I gotta stay strong I feel depressed, now don't you know Catch me, 'cause I'm falling deep down below

Reads a little bit like a very rough draft of an angst-ridden Linkin Park verse, doesn't it? And hey, weren't they fronted by a rapping and singing pair too? 🤔

Now, try not to read this following chorus from singer Anita Doth as if it's being delivered by Chester Bennington instead:

Oh, I can't escape I'm trapped and there is no safe place to go And I do regret the things I did but how on earth could I know? Here I go Here I go catch me I'm falling deep Here I go Here I go catch me I'm falling falling

Now, folks, am I really about to uncork one of the hottest and also single-stupidest takes in the history of music blogging here? Yes; yes I am:

The late period of 2 Unlimited's initial run in the mid-90s, when the lyrics on their singles started to employ actual themes, represents a clear predecessor to Linkin Park. In fact, the year that Ray and Anita both left 2 Unlimited was the same year that Linkin Park formed under their first name, Xero! It's actually all on the same continuum!

Anyway, this black-and-white video for "Here I Go" is pure, unadulterated nightmare fuel too, as people seem to be falling from very high distances, only to be caught by spider webs made of thick rope, which seems to delight some freaky-looking, underground-dwelling humans who live down there. And each one of those humans were all probably once one of those people who fell into one of those webs too. But now some of them very unsettlingly crawl on stilts, and the leader of the pack appears to get around in some kind of insectoid contraption.

Never could've imagined that exploring 2 Unlimited's videography past their popular US singles would ever lead me down into such a deep and dark hole, but here we apparently are right now! And "Here I Go" appears to have marked a turning point for the group as well, as it was their first single to not chart as highly throughout Europe as they'd probably hoped and expected. But funnily enough, while the well was clearly starting to run dry in 1995 with this one, two of the group's earliest hits, "Get Ready for This" and "Twilight Zone," would end up appearing Stateside on the platinum-selling first volume of Jock Jams that same year. And then further appearances on future installments of that series would end up extending 2 Unlimited's relevancy in the US far past the time of their initial breakup, which most Americans were undoubtedly completely unaware had even ever happened!

More fun videos here.

#eurodance #euro dance #dance #dance music #eurohouse #euro house #house #house music #electronic #electronic music #music #90s #90s music #90's #90's music #Youtube

[chirp-featherfowl]

... ykw sure <- never read homestuck. give me a classpect for martyn. maybe it'll help us settle on his winner symbolism

it has been a long and grueling three days of trying to find a classpect for martyn inthelittlewood. every time i think i've got it, another option pops up. maybe he's a knight? maybe he's a maid? maybe he's a muse? who knows! he called himself a wanderer, so he's gotta be breath. he meets gods in the void--obviously, he's a maid of void. he succumbed to the watchers and betrayed scott: so his aspect is light! he broke the cycle: his aspect is doom. he won. his aspect is time.

so: here are some classpects based off the different symbols that the fandom has given martyn. be warned! really long post ahead!

THE VOID: he's a maid of void! obviously! maids struggle with a strong force of their aspect weighing on them (jane with crockercorp, aradia literally being dead, porrim with-- ohhhh no this does not reflect well on andrew hussie), and who has a stronger force of void weighing on them than martyn? these gods, who speak in riddles, contact him through the void, and purposefully are obscure as all hell RIDICULE him, and he needs to learn how to fight back.

MARS: okay, well, i feel like we should all come to the consensus that martyn is a bard of blood, right? it's only fitting he shares the same aspect as grian (SEND ME ASKS ABOUT GRIAN) considering the way he won. bards usually start out with a lack of aspect, and they're fine with that until SOMETHING (like a video of some clowns, dave, and there's another bard in homestuck but i don't like to think about him for long periods of time) sets off a path of destruction in them (this could have just been a gamzee thing though. i could be wrong and that could have been gamzee being gamzee). in this case, martyn has never been the one in charge--even rejected by his soulmate, he defaults to her. ren was charismatic, and scott kept alliances open while martyn was being hunted down by literally all of ties. this changes until the last episode, where martyn wants to win. he joins TIES, stays alive 'till the very end, and wins with a betrayal at the very last moment, destroying any bond they might have hand. (this is not even touching on how he ghosts breath.)

THE OCEAN: ALTERNATIVELY... martyn is a textbook prince of breath. he ghosts blood: he's loyal even to the risk of his own death, even when it's to his own detriment--i. e. the red alliance not inviting him for fear of his betrayal, knowing that martyn would kill them all for scott. in ghosting blood, he destroys any indifference, any easy way out, and any independence he might have had (examples of princes ghosting their inverse can be seen in dirk, being cool and calculating, eridan, in uhh. uhh. KILLING HALF THE TROLLS IN A VICIOUS RAGE. SPOILERS I GUESS. BUT HE DID THAT. and i seriously could not give less of a shit about kurloz). eventually, when there's just three of them left, martyn kills the alliance. he breaks their agreement. he even kills scott first. and when everything is done? that's it. he's alone.

A METEOR: this MIGHT be controversial, but i'm under the firm belief that martyn is a muse of l--

sorry. we're skipping meteor. martyn doesn't deserve to have a masterclass unleashed upon him (also this one's going to take me over a day to figure out and i want to finish this ask QUICK)

??? NOTHING I GUESS: martyn is a maid of time. oh wow! canon classpect! we did it, boys! okay, here we go:

limited life was built on the previous seasons. every action didn't have the same weight to it when taken from the context of the series as a whole. joel tried to save jimmy from the canary curse and failed. skizz tried to rectify the four hours of time he lost and failed. etho tried to forget bdubs and failed. grian left his alliance again. impulse kills bdubs, grian kills scar. martyn watches that happen. they plan on ending it like third life, doing another cycle, and martyn's not about to fit into another cycle. scott or impulse could have another ending--one about trust and forgiveness or avenging your alliance or surviving, but martyn doesn't want a story, and he doesn't want a satisfying ending, and he doesn't care about the past. he wants to win.

so he wins.

#lifesmp #limited life #martyn inthelittlewood #lifestuck #i guess that's my tag now #homestuck #classpect #god i thought i was alllll for maid of time but then i endeared myself to prince of breath... jeez #I'M NOT CONVINCED ON MAID OF TIME OR. BARD OF BLOOD. OR MAID OF VOID. OR HONESTLY PRINCE OF BREATH #OR ANY OF THEM. OR EVEN MUSE OF LIGHT #ESPECIALLY MUSE OF LIGHT. #MARTYN... BE NORMAL!!!!! BE NORMAL!!!!!!! BE NORMAL!!!!!!