#And that the author was careful for him and Oscar to move pieces that would make sense for the game to end that way | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

httpiastri · 9 months

Text

beautiful – op81

genre: sweet sweet smut

pairing: female reader x oscar piastri

warnings: wellll it's smut so..... not much else, it's pretty soft so nothing rlly in need of a warning i think. almost a liiittle praise kink hiding in there but not exactly a warning ahah

requested?: um no not really BUT this ask from when this blog was still new has been on my mind ever since i got it....

author's note: this fic is basically just me calling oscar beautiful a thousand times..... second time ever writing smut and it's just as weird as the first time lmao! but i did enjoy writing it. this is protected sex because !! don't forget to be safe when yall have sex !!! and consent is sexy. hope you enjoy this <3 (and again, it's 5am so yes it was proofread but i probably missed something... soz)

f1 masterlist

18+ content below! minors, do not interact!! thanks

oscar is always beautiful.

when he stood on the podium yesterday, for the first time in his formula one career, he was gorgeous. when he came down to hug his family, you included, the smile on his lips was irresistible. and when he danced with you in some random club, his features reminded you of the ones of a god.

he had been teasing you all night. the fleeting touches and quick kisses he gave you held a promise; you would be back in your hotel room soon, just you and him, and he would take good care of you.

you had helped each other get undressed, drunken giggles shared between you as it had taken him a few moments to figure out the zipper of your dress. but the exact moment his head had hit the pillows, he had been out like a light. you swore you had only turned away for a second to take off your earrings, but when you had looked back at him, he had already been snoring.

even then, he was beautiful. but the maybe one moment you enjoy watching him the most is times like these. when the rays of the soft morning sun light up his features, his face basking in the rays. his chest rises and sinks in a steady rhythm, mouth barely open as he takes his sleepy breaths. with his messy, long fringe spread over his forehead, strands of hair tickling his round cheeks.

when he looks so pure, innocent, untouched, like he’s never had a worry in his entire life. so far away in dreamland, this world long forgotten.

but he loves coming back to this world. dreaming is nice, but when he opens his eyes and they land on the beautiful angel next to him, he feels like he has stepped into yet another dream.

his arms are draped around your waist, keeping you close as one of your hands land on his cheek. you smile when his eyes flutter closed again. “morning,” you hum, letting your thumb stroke across his skin. your finger follows his birth marks, the ones you could draw out blindfolded, the ones you know like the constellations you memorized in fifth grade.

oscar is always beautiful, but like this, he's perfect.

he doesn't answer, instead opting to trail one of his hands along the side of your body. the hand finds the hem of your thin shirt and dips inside it, letting the tips of his fingers swipe up and down your skin, against the sensitive area right below your chest, further down to your hips. he notices now that you aren't wearing any underwear, and the realization brings a grin to his lips.

he leans forward to press a kiss to your cheek as he drags his thumb along the inside of your thigh. his mouth moves down to your neck, trailing pecks and licks and bites on it's journey across your body. no piece of skin remains untouched or unkissed; oscar would kiss every inch of your soul if he could.

his head ducks under the blanket to reach your stomach, his hand coming up to push your hip softly. you take the hint and lie down fully on your back, a low sigh leaving your lips as he climbs on top of you. he's still hiding under the blanket so you're surprised when his lips meet the front of your thigh, your legs squeezing together in reaction. his voice is raspy when it leaves his throat, vocal cords still cold after a long night's sleep. "i want to taste you. open up, please."

your legs fall open easily; you're always open to letting oscar do what he wants. a jolt of electricity shoots through your body as he presses his lips to your clit. one of your hands come down to rake through his hair as his tongue drags along your folds and you feel way too sensitive already. his name falls from your lips when he starts sucking on your clit, but it's the feeling of his fingers entering you that takes over your mind completely. you can't think of anything other than how his digits are pumping you, how his tongue works wonders against you, and how you're so close already.

your hand in his hair tightens when you reach your high, your legs shaking and your heart hammering in your chest. he lets you try to catch your breath for a few moments, but then he pulls the covers down his body, appearing from below them as if in a round of peek-a-boo. even as you're breathless, coming down from an orgasm after being eaten out, you somehow have the energy to laugh at your lover. he's so dorky, so darling,

so beautiful.

even when his hair is a mess, even when he's newly awake, even with traces of you on his lips.

the hand leaves his hair, coming down to cup his cheek and pull him up towards your face. he hovers above you, bringing his fingers up to let his tongue clean them from your juices. you usher him down to you, desperate to let your lips meet his for the first time in so many hours. when his lips finally lock with yours, a pleasured sound escapes your mouth. you don't even mind the taste of yourself on his lips, because the taste of him takes over, flooding your senses.

it's hungry, but not at all rushed; it's sensual in a way that only mornings with him can be.

oscar doesn't break the kiss when his hand rummages over the bedside table, desperately searching for something. he lets out a frustrated groan when he has to pull away because he can't find it, and you giggle at the sound. in just a moment, he has leaned back down to capture your lips again, this time with a condom in his hand. he wants, needs, to be connected to you constantly, so his lips are still attached to yours as he pulls off the wrapper and rolls the condom down his length. he positions himself by your entrance and unwillingly pulls away. "are you okay with this?" he asks, letting one hand hold your waist as the other smooths down your arm. when it reaches your hand, he takes it in his, intertwining his fingers with yours.

you nod, giving his hand a squeeze. "it's more than okay."

he pushes into you and your eyes roll back as your hand squeezes his again, this time involuntarily. he fills you up to the brim, a perfect fit; the stretch is just right, not too much and not too little. he gives you some time to get used to it before he starts to move, the strength in his thrusts rising bit for bit. a moan escapes your mouth when he hits one specific spot and he grins, leaning down to press his lips right below your ear. "my sweet girl," he whispers, tracing his kisses down the side of your neck.

his thumb strokes against the back of your hand as his other hand moves down between your legs. two of his fingers come to rub your clit as he continues pushing into you. "oscar..." you sigh, instantly becoming overwhelmed with the sensations. "it's... god, it's too much..."

he slows his actions, though he doesn't entirely stop, as he speaks up. "i know you can take it." he pulls his head away from your neck to look at you, and-

oscar thinks you look so beautiful.

with your hair splayed over your pillow, with your flushed cheeks, with your rosy lips slightly parted and gasping for air as you chase your high. he can't think of anything more perfect than you, and sharing this moment with you is a true blessing to him.

your breath grows heavier as you get closer, and you hang your free arm around his neck, helping him kiss you yet again. he swallows your sweet sounds that become more frequent as you approach your climax, picking up the speed of his fingers again. "that's my girl," he mumbles against your lips. "taking me so well... you're so good."

your sweet noises fill the room as you both come undone together, bodies vibrating against each other's as he rides out your highs. he collapses right next to you, one hand still holding onto your hand as the other drags you into his side. you both take a few moments to breathe, before oscar pushes a few strands of hair away behind your ear. he can't help but smile again. "you're beautiful."

"so are you."

1K notes · View notes

mariacallous · 2 months

Text

“My brain will desperately want to forget all this,” narrates journalist Mstyslav Chernov over footage he filmed of city workers adding bodies to a mass grave in Mariupol, “but the camera will not let it happen.”

At the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Chernov, along with his Associated Press colleagues, photographer Evgeniy Maloletka and field producer Vasilisa Stepanenko, were the last international media left reporting from the besieged city of Mariupol. Those who remained within the city faced significant risks as Russian forces advanced.

The footage they captured for the AP, including famous scenes from the aftermath of the Russian airstrike on a maternity hospital on March 9, 2022, horrified the world and arguably contributed to mobilizing international aid for Ukraine.

The documentary film "20 Days in Mariupol" pieces together this footage in chronological order. It earned a nomination for Best Documentary Feature Film at this year's Oscars, which are scheduled to air on March 10, and there's a strong likelihood that the film will win.

The Oscar nomination is a first for Ukrainian cinema and a victory for “20 Days in Mariupol” would be a historic milestone for Ukrainian culture during the country's darkest hour. But many are hoping that it will also bring renewed global focus on the stark brutality of Russia's war crimes as the full-scale war enters its third year.

Creeping horror

Prior to the full-scale invasion, Mariupol was home to around 540,000 people and considered one of the largest cities in Ukraine, according to data in a report published by Human Rights Watch, Truth Hounds, and SITU Research this February. Mariupol’s residents endured relentless bombardments for eight weeks until the city fell under total Russian occupation in May 2022. The city’s destruction is one of the first major war crimes committed by Russia during its all-out war against Ukraine.

The authors from the report “Our City Was Gone: Russia’s Devastation of Mariupol, Ukraine” estimate that around 400,000 of the city’s residents were able to flee the city by mid-May 2022. However, those who remained “were left for months without basic services, including electricity, running water, and health care.”

The exact death toll from Russia’s siege on Mariupol is unknown given that the city remains under occupation. Official estimates range between 10,000 and 25,000 people, but the actual number is likely higher.

Critical infrastructure was targeted by Russian forces early on in the siege, meaning that Mariupol’s residents were left “without (widespread) access to running water, electricity, gas, heating, telecommunications, or information about what was happening around them in the city or the broader (war).”

The report also incorporates testimonies from multiple survivors, giving added context to what viewers see in “20 Days in Mariupol.” For example, there is the testimony of a 57-year-old English teacher who sought refuge with her husband at the city’s Regional Intensive Care Hospital. The woman suffered a broken arm during the Russian shelling of her neighborhood, while her husband sustained injuries to his face, jaw, and legs, rendering him unable to eat or speak. Doctors in the city increasingly struggled to provide sufficient medical care to patients such as the couple, as the city was under a blockade, and their supplies were rapidly diminishing. They were soon compelled to conduct amputations for the more severely injured patients under improvised anesthesia. Patients moved to the basement after the Regional Intensive Care Hospital was targeted by Russian forces on March 13. “There were hundreds of people in the basement. It’s hard to figure out how many. The basement was packed. There were mattresses and we had some ventilation. But there was only a little light, no water, and no toilets. The hospital had a generator, so we sometimes had electricity,” the woman recalled.

The bodies of at least 10 people who later died from their injuries or other complications had to be removed from the basement, the woman added.

The authors of the report collected multiple testimonies of how Russian forces deliberately targeted civilians.

A member of the Mariupol City Council, Halyna Morokhovska, managed a shelter for civilians that was targeted by Russian forces on March 15, 2022. There were 172 people in the building at the time of the attack.

“There was a lot of shelling, lots of loud explosions ... Suddenly I heard a long hum, like a ‘uuuuuuuuuuuuu’ sound, and then my ears were ringing. I was later told that there was a large crater in front of the building,” Morokhovska said.

“Then I saw (a woman) buried under bricks, with parts of her body sticking out. The right-hand side of my body, especially my leg, had been badly injured by shrapnel. My thigh and my face were bleeding, and blood was flowing into my eyes and mouth.”

‘Film how these f**kers are killing civilians’

“20 Days in Mariupol” captures all this horror as it begins to unfold. Having previously reported on Russia’s attempts to take the city in 2014, Chernov and his colleagues knew that it would once again become a target and decided to return there in 2022.

The first death seen on film is at a hospital on the city’s outskirts, located just a few kilometers from the front line.

Russian forces had not yet entered the city, but the sound of fighter jets overhead and increased shelling prompted residents to seek shelter wherever they could find it.

As Chernov explains to the tense soldiers at the hospital perimeter that he has to film because it is a "historic war," their conversation is interrupted by the arrival of an ambulance. Inside, paramedics are desperately trying to save a four-year-old girl.

“My baby, oh God,” her mother wails. “Please save my child.”

Chernov follows them with his camera as she is transported onto a gurney and brought inside the hospital. After a few minutes, it becomes clear that the little girl cannot be saved, leading to increasing emotional distress among the doctors and nurses.

“It’s good that the press is here,” one of the doctors says angrily. “Film how these f***kers are killing civilians. That’s how (Russia) ‘saves’ people.”

The little girl’s name was Anhelina. Throughout the film, Chernov tries to name the victims whenever he can in his voiceover narration, so that they are not perceived by the viewer as mere statistics.

The deaths of multiple children — including infants — are seen in the film along with the heart-wrenching sight of grieving parents struggling to come to terms with their loss. In one scene, a teary-eyed girl timidly confesses in a shelter that she’s afraid and doesn't want to die. These are perhaps the most difficult scenes to sit through — but they are also important as they underscore the sheer brutality of Russia’s war.

While it might be viewed by some as a controversial decision, the film also chooses not to shy away from the darker moments of the siege on Mariupol. For example, a distressed woman watches helplessly as her store is looted by locals. There are also some Mariupol residents who, due to the spread of misinformation, believe that it’s the Ukrainian army attacking them.

However, there are many more Mariupol residents who declare to the camera — either through tears or anger — that they don’t want their city to be part of Russia.

As Chernov notes in his voiceover narration, war has a way of amplifying a person’s character. After the credits roll in "20 Days in Mariupol," the viewer will inevitably ponder the fate of each individual depicted in the film — whether they succeeded in escaping the city, currently live under occupation, or were later killed by Russian forces.

Getting the truth out

Russia's war against Ukraine has been frequently called "the most documented war in history" because of the extensive footage captured since Feb. 24, 2022. But the pervasive nature of Russian propaganda has led some to still not fully grasp the horror of the violence Russia has inflicted upon Ukraine.

This is a problem that “20 Days in Mariupol” acknowledges, ending with footage of Russia’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations Vasily Nebenzya being confronted by journalists about the footage Chernov, Maloletka, and Stepanenko captured in Mariupol.

Nebenzya tells reporters that there are “so many fakes” and complains about a so-called information war against Russia. Chernov juxtaposes this in the film with footage of Mariupol city residents navigating through a completely destroyed urban landscape, highlighting the grim reality of Russia's "liberation."

Russia's global-scale information war persists as Ukrainian civilians nationwide face repeated targeting through shelling, missiles, and drone strikes.

On Jan. 3, the Emilia Romagna Cultural Association announced an event in the Italian city of Modena focusing on the purported "rebirth" of Mariupol and Russia's claimed "rapid reconstruction" efforts in the occupied city.

The Facebook post about the event, which was written in both Italian and Russian, referred to Russia’s “liberation” of Mariupol. Russian Ambassador to Italy Dmitry Shodin and Eliseo Bertolasi, an Italian journalist with pro-Kremlin leanings, were scheduled as speakers.

Thanks to pushback from Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry and the Ukrainian community in Italy, Modena city officials revoked permission for the event on Jan. 9. But the fact that it was even approved in the first place points to the urgency of not letting the world forget about Russia's ongoing war crimes against Ukrainian civilians.

Tetyana Denford and Darya Zorka, who translated the film into English for Frontline PBS, wanted to do their part to help reveal the truth about what happened in Mariupol, despite the emotional toll they knew it would take on them.

“We’d only recently found out about the Russian atrocities in the Kyiv region (when we got hold of the footage) and we knew that Mariupol was likely much worse,” Zorka told the Kyiv Independent.

“However, we didn’t fully understand the scale of destruction and Russian barbarism until we saw the raw footage from the city.”

It would sometimes take Zorka two hours to translate a two-minute segment because she couldn’t stop crying. Likewise, Denford began to consult a therapist because she realized that the second-hand trauma she experienced from watching the footage was affecting her day-to-day life.

“But I realized how urgent this was, and I became sort of robotic in my work. I couldn't stop until I finished whatever I had on my desk that day, as long as it took,” Denford said.

The announcement of the film's Oscar nomination in mid-January represents a significant milestone for Ukrainian culture amid an ongoing war for the country's survival. For the two translators, it’s important that more people will now be talking about what’s happening in Ukraine at a point when coverage of the war is dwindling from international news cycles.

“It just shows you that creativity, art, cinema… these are ways where people can learn more of the truth, instead of just watching the news unfold. We can reach people with these ways on a much bigger scale,” Denford said.

“You just have to be human, and believe that people have a right to tell their stories. We all just have to give each other the space and respect to tell our truth. Otherwise, we have nothing left.” At the same time, this achievement comes at a great cost to Ukraine and has been followed by countless other atrocities, such as the Bucha massacre, the discovery of mass graves in liberated Izium, and the brutal Russian capture of cities like Bakhmut and Avdiivka.

“I would give all the Oscars in the world for the people of Mariupol to be alive and just live their lives like the rest of us,” Zorka said.

“No Oscar can return the tens of thousands of people killed or heal the millions of those who witnessed unspeakable horrors.”

7 notes · View notes

desert-fern · 11 months

Text

Bruised Black and Blue - A Former Gunpowder and Lead Extra

Specific Warnings for this blurb: murder, shouting, making of poisons, guns, blood, poisoning, physical violence, swearing (expect this in all of my stuff tbh)

Paring for this piece: OC Fern “Bruiser” Spades X Natasha “Phoenix” Trace

Notes from the author: This fic belongs to an alternative timeline of a fic that is currently being rewritten by the original authors. BUT FERN’S CHARACTER IS MY OWN AND I REFUSE TO DELETE MY HARD WORK

===

Constantly looking over one’s shoulder got exhausting quickly. The CIA offered a million and one perks, but unfortunately for them, being thrust head first into cartels, trafficking rings, mercenary groups, while simultaneously rubbing elbows with some of the most vile people in the world, was not how I imagined spending my life.

So I decided to leave Langley and planned to never look back. But I was dragged from my thoughts by my former handler. “Agent Spades.”

“Sir.” Grant, or whatever he called himself, was watching me closely. “And it’s former agent now.”

He nodded. “Ms. Spades then. Are you certain that I can’t convince you to stay?”

“I’m afraid you can’t.”

The man before me grit his teeth, his jaw so tight I thought it would snap off of his face. “I’m sure we have some more local work that may interest you.”

I smirked. Typical CIA, loosely veiling an order as a suggestion. “Afraid not. I gave most of the life I have lived to you and the organization. I’m out. Besides, Operation Nightshade got me thinking about the simple life.”

Obviously, Grant didn’t like my answer, but I didn’t care. I had spent most of my adult life working for an organization that required blind trust, blind faith that the decisions made by those on high were done for the greater good. However, losing most of my team while running a false flag operation opened my eyes to the reality that the CIA never cared about us. We were always going to be pawns to the organization, and I couldn’t live that life anymore.

===

A year and a half later, I found myself in Austin, Texas living with the man of my dreams, a man named Oscar Moreno. A good, kind man, who worked a 9-5 office job, lived in a two-storey house in the suburbs, a man who cared deeply for me. I loved him, if it wasn’t obvious. We had a dog, a hound that I named Andy, and I could see myself spending the rest of my life in this bliss. I worked in a small boutique downtown as a saleswoman and it was so different from everything I knew. We lived in a bubble, a bubble that I never wanted to pop.

But of course something changed. Maybe it was because I wasn’t used to simple, or maybe it was because I had feigned suburban life many times while working for the CIA that his behaviour started to seem like it was all an act.

I started noticing cupboards that had once opened were now locked or in the case of the middle drawer of the living room bookcase, completely sealed. Oscar started leaving the room to take phone calls, unable to look me in the eye when he told me that it was nothing. He had also started spending more and more time in his office, the door that was once always open to me, now locked tight, even when he wasn’t home. Andy had started growling when he came close to me, whimpering and following close whenever Oscar made a sudden move.

Then Oscar started staying out later and later, sometimes not coming home until 9-10 pm, despite his office shutting down at 6 every day. He’d started taking weekend trips too; not coming back until late Sunday night and he would refuse to answer my questions, sometimes shouting at me to drop it. So I did, but my brain had taken hold of these abnormalities like a dog with a bone and no amount of his aggravated “I’m fine” or “Don’t worry about it” convinced me to let it go.

Either he was cheating, which I doubted, because I would have found something by now, or he was what I had been. A spy for someone, some country, corporation, or crime lord that wanted something. Or I was just paranoid, which was possible. The constant looking over my shoulder that I had hated while operating for the CIA had come back the longer I stayed in that house in the suburbs and I was growing worried.

A year and a half later, Oscar had proposed with a ring that I knew cost far more than he should have been able to afford. His behaviour had settled down a little but I knew he was still hiding things from me. If the locked office door or three separate phones didn’t give that away, then the tripwire in his office and the ink packages in his desk drawers definitely did.

The drawers hid file after file on customs agents at the Austin airport, ID badge templates, building blueprints, and 3D printing guides for weapons pieces. “I guess I was right to be concerned.” I had told all of this to Grant, who said plainly that the CIA didn’t conduct operations on American soil. I had scoffed at his lie and hung up, determined to figure this out on my own.

I had run false flag operations before and they had all started out like this. The realization hurt me deeply. All I knew was that the last three years of my life had been a lie, that Oscar, the man I loved, was all in this to achieve his mission. His betrayal stung like hell, and I remember leaving his office exactly how I had found it, just as Oscar had come bursting through the front door. It was like watching a tornado race through the house as he dug through a few drawers to grab things I couldn’t make out, stuffing them in his pockets. Then, like clockwork, he disappeared into his office.

Only this time, he shouted for me. “Fern!”

“Yes, honey?”

“Come here.” And if those words didn’t send my heart plummeting down, down, down into my ass, I didn’t know what would. I had to tread carefully. I knew more than I should in this moment and that made me dangerous.

I swallowed. “Give me a sec, okay?”

“No. Now.”

Shit. Oscar had never demanded anything of me before.

“Fern!”

“Coming!” I hurried up the stairs to his office, towel in hand to make it look like I had been in the middle of something instead of standing in the hall, staring up the stairs. “Jeez Oz. What’s going on?”

His face was pinched as he watched me come stand in the doorway. “Cut the shit. Where is it?” Oscar was angry. I had never seen him like this, red in the face, the brown eyes that I had grown to love were filled with an emotion I had never seen on him.

This time the confusion that spread over my face was real. “What are you talking about, honey? I don’t come in here. You made that clear, and I respect your space.”

“My flash drive.” He stepped closer, hand dipping into his coat pocket and grasping hold of something. “The green one.”

I didn’t want to find out what he had in the pocket. Not if I wanted him to think I had no idea what he was planning. “Honey? You’re scaring me.” I added a little wobble to my voice, trying to sell the fear as I took a step backwards.

Oscar sighed, hand leaving his pocket to rub at his face. “I didn’t mean to do that, okay? I’m just stressed out. I’m sorry, mi vida.”

I just nodded, not trusting a word that left his mouth. “I know,” I mumbled, wringing the towel in my hands. “I’ll go start dinner.” The door shut the second I turned to head downstairs, the lock clicking shut seemed to echo down the hall, and I found myself tearing up. “Keep it together, Fern,” I mumbled to myself. “He’s just a man. A stupid, stupid man. After this, you’re done with men.”

Dinner was silent. The only noises being the clinking of silverware against our plates and the music playing softly from the kitchen. Then Oscar disappeared again, leaving me by myself downstairs, alone with my thoughts. All I could think about was stopping him. This man, Oscar, wasn’t who I had thought he was. He changed. Scoffing, I pulled my ring off, throwing it at the wall and watched it bounce under the fridge. Good riddance.

While Oscar slept, I sat up late, hiding in the shed in the backyard, carefully mixing a cocktail of poison that would burn as it entered the bloodstream. It was designed for a tortuous death and even worse, it was of my own design. The CIA trained me far too well for me to ever live a normal life.

Other vials I filled with water and, with a gas mask on, very carefully painted on melted thallium until the vials were shiny with the metal. Enough of it absorbed through the skin could kill quite quickly, and I had plans. I stored them carefully in a bag before slipping into bed.

When he got up earlier than usual the next morning, I waited until I heard the front door shut before I jumped out of bed and grabbed my keys and shoes, following him a few minutes later. The bag of poison sat under my seat, while my gun was concealed in the pocket of my hoodie. I was ending this today.

Oscar had gone everywhere except work that day. He went to the bank, where I saw him take a large amount of cash out from the ATM, then to the dry cleaners where he left with a suit bag that was definitely not his. I tailed him to a warehouse on the outskirts of the city, parking far enough away so as to not be spotted, yet close enough to make my getaway.

I found him and four other men huddled around, pulling on what looked like security uniforms as they spoke in Portuguese, finalizing the details of their plan. Lucky me, I got there right on time to stop them before they decided to do something stupid. Unfortunately, Oscar looked up at that moment and found himself staring me dead in the face. “Mi vida, what are you doing here?” His voice was hushed, like he was trying to hide what he was saying from the others, two of which had guns trained on me.

“I could ask you the same. Joaquin.”

The colour drained from his face as anger burned in his eyes. “What are you talking about?”

“I think you know.” My gun was sitting in the pocket of my hoodie, reachable, but I would need a fucking miracle to get to it quickly. “You thought you could hide this shit from me?”

Oscar - Joaquin - stared at me. “You took it!” He bellowed, hand coming up to slap me across the face.

He didn’t make contact. No, I caught his hand in my gloved one and pulled him close, my gun now muzzle-first against his neck. “Yeah. I did. False flag operations usually require a little more planning than just this. Who’s the handler?”

Nothing.

“I’ll kill him and then all but one of you, who will die painfully,” I threatened, waving the gun around and watched one of the men before me slowly put his gun on the floor. “Good boy.”

“I’ll kill you!” The man I knew as my fiancé had begun ranting, cursing me out in Portuguese. “I swear to God, I will kill you and bury you so deep that no one but the spiders and worms will find you!”

The last threads on my resolve snapped. The persona I had embodied too many times on missions came roaring back, and I backhanded Joaquin across the face before kicking him in the chest with my booted foot. “Who. Is. Responsible?”

“I’m not telling you.”

Well then. I grabbed his shirt with one hand, pressing my gun to his forehead, before repeating myself. “I have no qualms with putting a bullet in every joint of yours, so try again.” The look on my face was blank, emotionless. The Ghost eyes, a colleague had called them.

“No.”

Fine by me. I pulled the vials from my pocket, tossing them to each man around me. “I am going to give you boss this,” I wiggled the clear liquid, allowing each man to watch it slosh against the sides. “And one of you is going to tell me what you have planned, and I’ll consider telling you which one is the antidote.”

“Fern!�� Joaquin was yelling now, head thrashing side to side as I popped open the vial and poured it down his throat as he lay there twisting under me. The shouts turned into coughing and gagging, and when I removed my foot from his chest, he rolled over, fingers going down his throat, trying to throw up whatever I had given him.

“So? What’ll it be?”

The smallest man in the room immediately began explaining. He told me what the target was, what they had planned, who had ordered it. He told me everything, before collapsing. He and the others had caught the thallium coated vials, the toxin seeping into his skin as he had stood there.

None of the vials had been an antidote, they were realizing this now.

And after one fell, so did the others, each falling unconscious from the amount of thallium that coated each little glass container. Each man would remain there, a bullet passing through each of their temples, silencing them forever. Ever the diligent agent, not a bullet remained at the scene, those I would bury in my flower bed at home, where they would never be found.

Joaquin though, he was still alive. For now. No one except me knew the ingredients of what I had given him and it would stay that way. His voice was nothing more than a gurgle, yet still full of pain so deep that it took every fibre of his being to creep closer to me.

Too bad he wouldn’t ever leave the building. I made sure of that.

===

Months afterwards, I had rebuilt my life in Austin. It took a while, but eventually I was able to open a flower shop that I proudly named Hera’s Orchard. I worked 10-5, putting together bouquets, boutineers, and the like for weddings, events, prom, and just because. It was exactly the life I wanted for myself after the CIA. After Oscar.

I didn’t dwell on him for too long. He had lied the entirety of our relationship, the exact details were still unclear to me, but for once in my life, I was okay with that. He would only be a blip on the radar that was my life, so inconsequential that his name wouldn’t register.

Three weeks after opening, I hired my first and only three employees, Charlie, Mavis, and Lori. Charlie, I could tell, had a huge crush on me. Why I had no idea, but it made me chuckle on the odd night when my house was too quiet with just me and Andy. We were a small florist’s shop, and we got nowhere near enough traffic to require more people than that. And it worked for us.

There was, of course, a back room that was off limits. I told my employees that it was a special climate-controlled environment that required minimal handling and were plants that I had specially ordered. However, this was only a portion of the truth. The special plants were those that produced very dangerous poisons, some of which, when distilled down, were untraceable when combined with others.

It was a hobby of mine. Simple as that.

Plants were simple, but the concoctions they brewed were anything but. It added a new layer to the life I had built for myself and it thrilled me to no end. I built a lab in the basement of the house Oscar had left me. There, I spent my evenings and weekends playing around with different mixtures, testing theories and my own limits. It made it hard not to think about Oscar - Joaquin - some days. His death had been full of agony; a deep, writhing, biting pain that had snaked through his veins, lighting up every nerve ending in his body and it had been my final gift to him. A final thank you for a waste of three perfectly good years.

The relationship might have been fake, but his will wasn’t and neither was his life insurance. So I guess it did all work out in the end.

My creations sat there, gathering dust. Just like I was. I craved excitement, and for the first time, I found myself missing my old job. I had grown complacent, set in my ways. I had to change that before it would be the death of me.

Across the street from my flower shop sat a cute little bakery called Cora’s. I knew from Mavis that the cinnamon donuts were worth killing over, and from my observation, it was frequented by a lot of women. Not that that was anything of note, but after a few months of being open, I had noticed the pattern of women who seemed to shrink in on themselves as they walked in the doors, only to leave minutes later with a coffee cup and something that most of them stuffed into a pocket.

Well, consider me interested. Something was afoot.

I began my own investigation. Coming by every few days, making sure I didn’t have a pattern, and placing orders for my shop while inside as I sipped my drink of choice for the day. Sure I was casing the place, but I learned a lot.

The owners, a pair of women, who I came to know as Emory and Birdie, were kind but intimidating in the sense that they knew something you didn’t. Even their friend, Atlas, a local defence attorney, had the same look in her eyes, and I was immediately intrigued. I watched and waited, eventually introducing myself to the owners as the owner of the flower shop across the way, and I knew that I had an in.

One phrase seemed popular. “A pomegranate scone, please”, “Could I add a pomegranate scone to that?”, “A large coffee and a pomegranate scone.” An odd request to happen so frequently, given that the menu item didn’t exist, and whoever was behind the counter, whether that be an owner, or someone else, almost always paused before sliding something across the counter.

My interest was piqued, and one night I stayed late at the shop, watching the lights at Cora’s shut off, while a queue of people seemed to grow longer and longer by the minute, stemming from the back of the building.

Strange.

I armed myself, slipping into the queue silently before ducking inside a speakeasy. It was electrifying, especially since I had been out of the spy game for a while now, and it was like I was coming home.

I wandered through the building, taking in the musicians and the performers, watching the patrons, noting the clothing, the way they carried themselves. At this point, I caught sight of a woman I had seen at Cora’s earlier that day. One who had used the phrase. She was curled in on herself, intentionally making herself small. Markers of a woman in distress.

Slipping down the hallway after her, I watched her enter a room with four women sitting around a table. What happened there with that woman was none of my business, but she met my gaze when she left. It was full of relief, confidence, and something new that had a pep in her step. “Thank them again for me,” she whispered as she slipped past me down the hall, and I saw her exit through the back door, disappearing into the night.

Now it was my turn for an audience.

I stepped into the room, the pieces of my investigation slotting into place as I watched recognition flicker over three of the faces. Emory, Atlas, Birdie, and another woman had stood on my entrance, their faces torn between confusion, anger, and something else. Something dark lingered in the eyes of the fourth woman. “So. This is where the code gets you.”

“Fern.” Birdie’s voice was so unlike its usually chipper nature. I had intruded on something secret and she did not want me here. “What are you doing?”

“Offering my help. These women you are helping need more than a gun, or being able to smother whoever is hurting them.” There was no humour in the eyes of the usually laughing Emory. She was doing her best to pin me to the spot with her glare. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough.

“You need my help,” I continued, walking up to the table. “If you really want to protect these women, as you claim to do, then you need this.” I placed a vial of my newest mixture on the table, grinning a little as they turned slightly to glance at it.

The one woman I didn’t recognize, scoffed. “Water in a little jar isn’t going to do anything for these women.” Her voice was sharp, by my guess a woman who had served her country for as long as she could, and she was clearly not a fan of me being here.

I grinned. “If that were water, then I’d be wasting all of our times. I have a specific skill set that is helpful to you and you would be wise to take me up on it.” My tone left little room for argument. I was dead-set on joining this ‘girl-gang’ of sorts. Their cause was admirable, but they needed help. “Besides. I caught you with your pants down, that isn’t a good business model.”

A look was exchanged between the trio of women, before one nodded sharply. “You are the first person to find us like this,” Atlas commented. A part of her seemed impressed, but I knew better than to believe that these women weren’t dangerous.

“And I intend on being the last. You give me a chance to ensure that these work the way I intend them to. I help you ensure that this sanctum is only penetrated by those needing our help. Do we have a deal?”

Emory smirked. “What makes you think we need you?” A typical posturing move, she was unsure and trying to compensate. If I were right, then she was a woman like the kind she helped, using her past experiences to guide her anger at the man who hurt her and channeling it into punishing the abusers, douchebags, and those who deserved it. “You said it yourself, you just walked right on in here. We have been doing just fine without you.”

“You have. I would be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge that.” It would be stupid of me to think that they weren’t capable. I had made a career on men and even other women doubting my abilities, my intelligence. I wouldn’t make the same mistakes that those morons had. “I only think your mission could be better served if your doors weren’t so easily slipped through. You could better protect these women with my skill set in combination with yours.”

“Hmmm.”

I nodded at the vial on the table. “Give that a try. If it doesn’t yield the intended results, then we pretend this didn’t happen. I won’t say a word because I clearly know very little of what happens here. But,” I paused to meet Emory’s gaze, holding it with mine. “If it does its job, you know where to find me. Have a good night ladies.”

And just like that, I walked out of the inner sanctum of the women that I would come to know as the Furies, not looking behind me. I took a risk, a calculated one. I only had to hope that my skills were something that they deemed useful. If not, then as I promised, I wouldn’t say a word. Their mission was admirable, ambitious, but one that was important.

I got word a few days later via a basket of muffins that Emory wanted to chat with me. The basket had a phone number written in dark red pen on the little tag that hung from it, and once my staff were preoccupied with picking the ones they wanted, I stole away to call who I hoped would be a friend and ally soon.

We spoke quickly. Emory had wanted to tell me sooner rather than later that my poison had worked. That it was untraceable.

Now that surprised me.

“And,” Emory began. “We’d like to take you up on your offer of helping us ensure the safety of these women. Plausible deniability is everything in this line of work. It helps us keep them safe.”

“I sense a ‘but’ somewhere in that sentence.” My tone was light, almost humorous. I knew my work was excellent, but proof of it made my heart sing. “What’s the catch?”

Emory paused and the line went silent for a few moments. “There is an NDA. You didn’t come about joining us the usual way. We need to ensure our safety.”

“I understand that, Em. But please consider that if I wanted to harm you and the others, I could and you wouldn’t know until it was too late.” I had to make that fact perfectly clear. “But,” I continued, “I have no intention of doing do. I will sign the paperwork.”

There was a rush of air on the other end of the phone. “Good. Now, about the ad Cora’s has posted. You already know that asking for a pomegranate scone gets you help from us, do you have something you want to add?”

I hummed in thought. In truth, I had spent a long time thinking about this arrangement these women had and what my own involvement would entail. “Have them ask for a custom bouquet of asphodel and other blooms. Only I handle the custom orders.”

“Expect Atlas soon with the paperwork. Welcome to the Furies.”

===

I spent my days arranging flowers and bouquets for the good men and women of Austin, while nights I was either lurking in the darkness of the Underworld, Birdie’s speakeasy or holed up in my lab working on the latest batch of poisons that would debilitate the worst kind of man the universe could make: a coward who beat, belittled, looked down upon the woman he chose to share his life with.

A month after I had joined the ranks of the Furies, a furious ex-husband of a client stormed the speakeasy had made a run for the woman. It had taken me nothing to step in front of him, defending her. “Get out of my way bitch!” He was so drunk that I could practically taste the alcohol on his breath. Red face, twitching eyes, slight slur to his words, and half a stumble every time he took a step, it was a miracle he hadn’t passed out. “Move or… I’llmoveyou.”

Needless to say, I didn’t move. His presence in the speakeasy was a sign that things had to change some more. If one husband could come here after his wife, then the whole point of Persephone’s - Emory’s - mission was wasted. He swung at me, a wild haymaker that missed me by miles. I fired back with two quick jabs to the side, sending him stumbling into the wall. Each swing he took hit nothing but air. He was too drunk to do anything more than stand let alone throw a punch, so I kicked his ass out the door, sending him on his way with a black eye and several bruises to his abdomen.

That one night earned me the nickname Bruiser, and I found out from Birdie that the task force was very interested in how a man had had a run in with a Fury and not wound up murdered that instant. The mere thought always made me smile, especially since he was found dead a week later with fentanyl left in his bloodstream.

It was also the night I met Natasha. She had approached me after I sent that man out the door and to say I was drawn to her was undercutting the entire experience. Soft dark hair, intelligent brown eyes, and just the right amount of muscle to still appear deceptively delicate and she had her sights on me. It was electrifying being in her presence, I hadn’t been so attracted to someone since Oscar, and here she was, her hand on my bicep, eyes cutting into mine in a way that had my head spinning.

“Want to go somewhere more quiet?” The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them, a furious blush covering my face.

Thankfully, all it did was make her grin. “Of course. Where were you thinking?”

��My shop is across the street?”

She nodded, motioning for me to lead the way. I let her into my office, sitting in my desk chair watching as she perched on the desk in front of me.

“So. Was this all a ploy to murder me, Fern?” Her question was full of teasing, but it still sent a bolt of fear down my spine.

“How do you know my name?”

She chuckled. “My best friend is married to Birdie. Bob?”

“Oh yeah. Somehow it’s easy to forget that she’s married,” I mused aloud, ignoring the bright smile on the face of the woman in front of me. “It has to be how she carries herself.”

Natasha smirked as she placed her hands on the armrests of the chair I was sitting in, my words seemingly lost between my mouth and her ears. “What do you want from me, Fern? A chat? A quick fuck?” She’d ignored the words I spoke moments earlier, choosing instead to cut past the formalities of getting to know someone.

Her bluntness made me laugh. “I just wanted to get to know you, Sargeant.” I held up her badge for her to see, grinning as she gaped at me. “You aren’t the only one with tricks.”

The room fell silent. Natasha’s presence filled the room we were in, a cloying feeling that enveloped all of my senses. It was like the summer air after a storm, thick, heavy and it made you sweat. I wanted more at the same time as parts of me wanted to leave. However, Natasha knew she had the upper hand and she didn’t waste it, ducking her head down to snare my lips in a kiss that stole my breath.

I pulled her towards me, sliding her off the desk and onto my lap, as I kissed her back, content to let her have control for the moment. When she pulled back for air, I seized the moment to trail teasing kisses across her collarbones and throat. It made me grin as I felt her breath hitch as I kissed over a spot just below her jaw. A hand gripped my jaw, steering my lips back to hers and her sigh allowed me to slip my tongue into her mouth, pulling her closer to my chest.

One of Natasha’s hands braced itself against the wall behind me, the other bracing my jaw as her clever mouth nipped and teased. I had gotten lost in the feeling of her lips on mine, that a sharp bite to my lower lip drew me back to the present moment. The same moment that this dream of a woman sat straddling my lap, kissing me. She was everything I hadn’t known I needed. Touches that sent sparks racing through my body and kisses that made my head spin. I barely knew her and yet I already knew that she would be my weakness.

I don’t know how long we sat there, making out like teenagers in my office, but it was one of the best moments of my life. Eventually, Natasha did have to leave but she stopped in my doorway, letting her eyes trail over my position in the chair as she chewed on her lower lip. It was enough to have me standing up, a card in my hand. “Next time you’re looking for a ‘chat’, Sargent, you know where to find me.”

“And if I want more?” Her dark eyes were a gleam with an unspoken challenge, and it had my blood pumping like I had just ran a marathon. “What does the infamous ‘Bruiser’ think of that, Fern?”

The grin on my lips matched the mirth in her eyes. “I don’t know, Natasha. You’ll just have to call and see.”

She plucked the card from my hand, kissed me softly once more before slipping out the front door of the shop. I watched her go, leaning against the counter, a hand pressing against my lips, mesmerized by the dark haired woman that had slid into my life so seamlessly. I hoped that she would call, that she wasn’t just a ploy used by the task force to unbalance us.

Moments later, my phone buzzed on the desk, the screen lit up to reveal a message from an unknown number: Does this count as calling? I need to see you again.

Her message made me chuckle as I typed back: I guess I can count it. Meet me at the shop tmw at 6. We can have dinner and talk.

A responding thumbs up flashed across my phone almost immediately. As I stuffed my phone into my pocket, a sinking feeling quenched the thrill that had been lodged deep in my chest. I couldn’t afford to get hurt again and I knew that Natasha would be the end of me.

Flash forward a year later

Natasha and I had been going strong for a year now and she had a difficult job, balancing me and my secrets with her duty as a police Sargeant, and I figured that it was time that she was read in on what was going on.

Except she refused. “What I do know is too much right now,” Nat told me. “My love, I want to know, don’t get me wrong. But I can’t protect you if I know everything.”

That part had confused me. “What do you mean?” We had been laying together in bed, her head pillowed on my bare chest as she curled into me. “I can protect us both.”

“I can still be called to testify against you if you are caught. I don’t want to know. Not yet.” Her voice, while soft in volume, was firm in its tone. She had risen up in her elbow to look at me and I couldn’t help but stare. She was a vision against the pale coloured sheets, her dark hair standing out as she played with my fingers, and like I had known from the start, she proved that losing her would be the end of me.

My voice stuck in my throat and it took several tries until I was able to croak out “You mean you want to wait until we get married?”

She nodded. “I do. That way, I can’t testify against you. I love you too much to put you at risk like this.” Her eyes were nervous, like she was afraid that she had said too much.

Okay. I could deal with that. “I love you too, Nat.”

===

A/N: So this is Bruisey! I had so much fun writing her story from before she was a Fury, and I hope you all enjoyed it too!

🏷️ @dakotakazansky @cherrycola27 @thedroneranger @sarahsmi13s @hisredheadedgoddess28 @roosters-girl @bobby-r2d2-floyd @startrekfangirl2233 @footprintsinthesxnd @genius2050 @angelbabyange @djs8891

#top gun fanfic #top gun fanfiction #top gun maverick fanfiction #controlled chaos squad #dagger au #mm gunpowder & lead #cm gunpowder & lead #mama may and birdie create mayhem #Natasha Phoenix trace X OC #Phoenix X OC #Natasha trace X OC #why are there no tags for Phoenix and an oc #i had so much fun #bruiser is my favourite

27 notes · View notes

richardsphere · 1 year

Text

RWBY Catchup Slogblog: V8E6 ~ The one in which Cinder gets to finally have a backstory.

Even Arthur Watts got a backstory before this woman, and he’s only been in the story since V4. Hell Mercury got a backstory with the abusive dad half a season ago. Orphanage/Farm full of bullies. followed by a hotel of some sort? (what hotel would decorate its entrance hall with statues of Grimm?) Oh they are just doing the “cinderella, is a slave” thing. I was hoping something less generic. Like it could be a sympathetic backstory, And a generic shockcollar. And there are the words again. Well at least that confirms 100% that Cinder is planning to betray Salem eventually. Lets hope it works out for her. Oh she has a fatherfigure? And he noticed the slavery? Fatherfigure is right that if she runs she’s got no place to go. He’s wrong to suggest that a life of monsterfighting is the only way out. He’s also wrong to suggest murdering slavers is wrong. I hate him already. Oh right, usual age for Huntsman Exam is 17. Is Fatherfigure really saying “stay in this slavery for seven additional years so i can save you seven years from now” Congrats you might be the worst parent in the show. JUST TAKE THE SHOCKCOLLAR AS EVIDENCE AND BRING HER TO THE AUTHORITIES YOU DIPSHIT. Weiss already demonstrated hunters have the legal authority to arrest people with her DAD. Congrats, the episode has made me care for Genshin-girl, if only by making me rage at the greatest buffoon to have ever become a huntsman (and that includes Dee & Dum from the train). I hope she kills everyone in the hotel. Statue of the LightDragon on the hotel mantle beneath the clock. Oh and now douchebag jones realises he has the authority to arrest criminals? When she rightfully defends herself from the slavers? Is that scar meant to explain why Cinder is constantly wearing long neck-pieces now? Im fairly certain that wouldnt add up with earlier seasons (i think i remember a neck-less dress at the ball but its been a while) ----- Mercury is here, and he’s trying to be the parental figure Emerald needs again, Em still isnt getting it. “something big is about to happen”. oh so are we introducing yet another thread to this already overcomplicated plot? Please learn to resolve a thread or two before spinning a new tapestry. ---- Ozpin and Oscar are talking, laying more groundwork for the story to have some of the “lesser” henchmen turn tail towards the good guys. Hazel is right once again, I get trying to make our antagonists “reasonable” but can we stop making them outright right. And there’s the Ex-wife. ------ Watts has called in on the phone. The dog is here, Cinder gets tortured and is starting to realise that maybe, just maybe she shouldnt have accepted the Shock-Collar Prosthesic arm. Oscar blurts out Salems true goal (I dont think Scorpio is going to care, but the rest might) ------ More of the AceOps, Also more earthquakes. (presumably yet another Kaiju-sized grimm?) Im sorry, is the grimm-goop moving inteligent and capable of movign against gravity now? Maybe the sentient grimm-river could use a little more explaining for such a plot vital ability for Salem to posess. I give this plottwist a 2/10. Visually interesting and creative use of borrowing-creatures, but comes out of nowhere and seemingly violates everything we know about the liquid-like nature of the grimm-goop as a substance. Looks good but seems like it was pulled right out of a writers ass. Nonetheless, the episode managed to make me care for the OG Main villain as a character, which though late 8 seasons in, is a good thing overall. Overall i give the episode a 7/10.

#rwby

0 notes

paper-n-ashes · 3 years

Text

Here

Characters: Dan Jones x Reader

Words: 1.9k

Warnings/Tags: Explicit (18+), mentions of sadness/depression, PIV sex, otherwise it’s the fluffiest fluffy fluff

Author’s Note: The last repost. A piece I wrote to work through my own issues at the time. A reminder to anyone, if you feel down, unhappy, or even just a bit flat, feel free to reach out to me. I will always make time for you as an ear to listen or a distraction with Oscar or Adam gifs 🥰

It had been a long and draining day. Not unusual really. Every evening Dan trudged up the stairs to your shared apartment, he felt much the same way.

Tired. More emotionally than physically. The things he read, the truths he was unravelling… It was truly soul-sucking work. Yet just the image of you, patiently waiting for his return home after another late night, provided a stark light in the darkness he found himself momentarily falling into as his muffled footsteps echoed down the hall.

He knew he was lucky. Lucky you were so patient. So understanding. Always waiting on him. Spending more time apart than together. The cancelled dinner dates, the events you’d had to attend alone, the weekends away you never got to plan, believing his work was more important.

There wasn’t a single time you complained. Always giving him the same loving smile, one he wasn’t sure how he deserved.

It wasn’t on your face when he slipped through the door. Curled up on the couch, knees hugged to your chest, you looked… sad.

Noticing his entrance, your expression quickly changed, beaming as your eyes locked with his. “Dan,” you breathed, a relieved edge to the name, releasing yourself from the tense ball and rushing to join him at the entryway.

The room was dim, air filled with silence as you slinked your arms under the jacket of his suit and around his torso, squeezing tight.

“Sorry I’m late.”

“You don’t need to say that every night,” you urged, words muffled into his chest.

“I know.” He still would, no matter how much you protested. Stroking a palm over your hair, Dan touched his lips to your forehead. For a moment, he simply breathed you in. Relishing the flowered perfume still lingering on your skin that would forever remind him of you.

It was such an unexplainable phenomenon. How you eased his stress with a single warm embrace. He hoped he could do the same for you.

“Is everything alright?” he asked softly.

“Absolutely,” you lied, nodding against his crisp, collared shirt. “You’re home now. Everything is just fine.”

Dan couldn’t help but smile at the sweetness of your response. But he also wasn’t stupid. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

You shifted your head to look up at him. “Nothing. Nothing’s wrong.”

There was a redness around your eyes that became glaringly clear. Crying. You’d definitely been crying.

A thumb traced the line under your lower lid. “Please don’t lie. I have to deal with enough of those every day.”

Your mouth twisted, feeling your throat tighten. Unknowingly, he’d illustrated exactly why you tried to hide your sadness in the first place. He didn’t need your burden. He already had enough weighing on his shoulders.

But you also knew he wouldn’t let this go. The man was a bloodhound for seeking the truth, and the way he was looking at you now, features filled with heartbreaking concern, your resolve weakened.

Taking a deep breath, you were honest. “I’ve just been feeling a little… sad lately. Not a big deal. It’ll pass.”

Dan’s eyebrows drew together, heart already aching at your admission. “How long have you been feeling like this?”

You shrugged, pupils darting to the floor. “A few days. As I said, not a big deal. Nothing you need to worry about.”

Two palms quickly found their way to your cheeks, forcing your stares to lock. He looked almost panicked. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“You’ve got other things that need your attention-”

“You think your sadness is not worth my attention?” he cut off, positively stunned at how casually you’d spoken your answer.

It’s what he’s always feared. This. Shielding him from the troubles in your own life while you joined in fighting his. Being his remedy, his source of comfort, while you struggled alone.

“It’s okay,” you attempted to soothe. “I can handle it myself, really.”

He shook his head. “No. No. You shouldn’t have to.”

Your fingers grazed lightly over the clean-shaven line of his jaw. “You’re so busy-”

The sentence couldn’t be finished, pulled into a squeezing embrace, hands cradling around you. “I will never be too busy when you really need me. Ever.” Breaths began to waft over your hair, Dan’s voice riddled with a gentle urgency. “And I’m here right now. Tell me how to make this better. Please.”

His caring hold had your resilience failing, unable to camouflage the misery you’d been feeling any longer. “I don’t even know h-how… What I need…” you quivered, voice starting to break. A sniffle escaped, barely able to suppress the urge to cry.

Dan wasn’t ever particularly good at solving problems. He knew that. Finding them, providing the support others needed to take action, that was his sweet spot. What he was good at. So that’s what he would do now.

The pressure around your body vanished, only for Dan to dip down and pluck you into in his arms, bridal style, carrying your body effortlessly to the bedroom.

His movements were cautious, making sure to place you delicately into the mattress. Without removing a single piece of clothing, shoes still on, he laid down, making your shape curl into his.

“We’re going to lay here for a while, okay? However long you want. You don’t have to talk. You can just… be sad.” Another kiss landed on the top of your head. “If you need me to do something, if you figure out what might help, I’ll be here. I’ll be right here.”

That did it. The wall you had been forcing to remain standing, now a crumbling pile of rocks, leaving you exposed. Vulnerable.

You began to cry.

At first, it was a soft weeping, tears wiped away by your own shaky fingers. Yet restraint withered into nothing, succumbing to the gloom that had haunted you for days.

Your breaths were harsh through heaving sobs, first clutching into Dan’s shirt, salted droplets staining the white fabric.

He couldn’t deny, it was painful to see you like this. To hear the whimpers of your distress. A slight wetness appeared at his corner of his eyes, clutching you closer. It was all he could do. Remind you of his presence, stroking your back as you let your emotions spill over.

As minutes passed into the next, your crying slowed, yet the quietness that followed was never broken. You both remained muted in the darkness, a tangle of limbs, your face nestled into Dan’s neck, his cheek resting over your hair.

Soon, without intention, the two of you fell asleep.

It was close to 3am when you woke again. Blinking through the haze of slumber, Dan rustled next to you, still fully dressed in his work attire.

Recent memories came surging through, the way he’d given you everything you needed, by doing nearly nothing at all.

Illuminated only by the light streaming through a set of half open blinds, your eyes wandered over his peaceful, dreaming face.

You didn’t get to see it as often as you liked. But when you did, you were infinitely grateful. Every long absence kept you savouring the time together more deeply. Quality over quantity.

A crackled snore suddenly broke through, having you fighting back a laugh. Dan shifted, still unconscious, turning closer into you, draping an arm over your waist. With a humming sound, you noticed a tiny smile curl his lips.

Oh, how you loved him.

You wanted to show him that, right now.

Carefully, you wriggled upwards, enough that you could press a dainty kiss just above the bridge of his nose. When he didn’t respond, you repeated the action, bringing your fingertips to his hairline, nails skimming over the inky strands.

You watched as his eyes fluttered, a sigh leaking from his throat. Before he could enter back into reality again, your lips landed on his, rolling over the supple pillows of flesh.

His reaction was sluggish, still gripped by a fog of fatigue, although soon his fingers were reaching into your hair, pulling your face even closer to strengthen your adoring kiss.

Words weren’t needed, Dan realised this as you began to unfasten the knot of his tie.

You’d figured out something he could do. Funnily enough, it was what he needed too. To make sure you knew exactly how much he loved you.

You’d done this dance many times, peeling off each other’s clothes. Yet this time felt… different. There was no rushing, no impatience. You both took your time, uncovering each portion of skin without reckless abandon.

With more exposure, Dan had more parts of you to kiss. So he did. Trailing them down your arms, your legs, his touch skating over your skin with such tenderness it made you shiver.

Eventually, the last piece of clothing that remained was your panties. Usually, being so desperate to fuck you after days going without, they’d be ripped off, sometimes even pulled to the side in his hastiness to fill you.

This time their removal was unhurried, restrained, Dan gliding the flimsy material down your legs with a calm poise.

Below, you noticed his touch disappear, looking up to see his stare roaming over your bareness.

So beautiful, he thought. Your body bathed in moonlight. While he wanted to speak it out loud, there was something poignant about the way the silence had continued to linger. He didn’t want to disturb it.

Instead, Dan covered your figure with his, skin to skin, scooping hands under you jaw. Another collision of your lips ensued, the exchange unabashedly passionate and filled an emotion too intricate to name.

Within an unspoken moment of harmony, Dan moved, lining himself to your entrance between your opened legs.

You’d been taken by him many times. In the bathroom stall on your first date. Over tables. On chairs. Floors. Kitchen counters. Countless times in this very bedroom. On this very mattress.

None of those scenes produced the same sense of satisfaction you felt as he sunk into you now. Not from the sensation itself, but the meaning behind it.

Words were fickle. They could be misconstrued. Altered by tone. Changed by moods and attitudes.

The way Dan began to thrust, steady yet severe, bruises being made from his grip at your back, kiss consuming your mouth and every facet of your thoughts…

There was no differing interpretation. No miscommunication. The definition explained merely by the feeling invoked from every action each of you made.

Two people. Expressing love in the most basal way in existence.

For a long time, longer than previous encounters, Dan worked himself in and out, relishing the feeling of your silky wetness, the whimpers he heard with each drag of his length.

Although, the feel of you clenching around him, when your thighs wrapped around his hips to to force his pelvis into yours with increasing intensity, soon had Dan struggling to stave off his release.

He didn’t ask to let it overtake him. Somehow, he knew didn’t need to.

Hurdling into a decadent climax, Dan drove hard into you, painting the deepest parts of your centre, filling you with everything he could give.

Slumping into your form, his nose burrowed into the curve between neck and shoulder. “I know I’m not always here,” he murmured. “But I’ll always be here. For you. Please remember that.”

Fingers swept over his messed hair. “I don’t think you’ll let me forget.”

One final kiss brushed over your throat. “Never again.”

@tlcwrites @roanniom @maryforyou @mariesackler @sacklerscumrag @barbers-glimmerin-darlin @finn-ray-nal-beads @mylifeisactuallyamess @hopeamarsu @foxilayde @goddesstonythetiger @caillea @direnightshade @blackberries45

#dan jones #dan jones x reader #paper-n-ashes #adcu

92 notes · View notes

itsclydebitches · 3 years

Note

Reading what you said re: it's not wrong to change a plan, as long as you properly adapt to it and build off cause and effect in a natural meaningful way

The classic MKEK fall-back of "this was planned from the beginning" always feels bad to me, not only because of the ready rebuttal of "if it was, then why was it set up so badly," but also because limiting yourself to a pre-determined plan from the start is actually incredibly stifling as a creative, and ultimately detrimental to your story.

You mention How I Met Your Mother as a good example of how "sticking to the plan" can be bad; so I just want to mention a show that thrived on "let the chips fall where they may," The Office. The actresses who played Pam and Angela have a podcast where they delve into each episode, talking about the behind the scenes aspects, trivia, writing choices, plot points, etc. and one thing that really stuck with me about it is that they didn't plan the ending. Even the famous romance between Pam and Jim was never 'end game' to the writers; they wanted to let the story and characters develop naturally and see where things went, and it felt more real because of it. There are scenes in the early seasons that exist solely because "that was back when they weren't sure if they would redeem Roy and have us get back together or not," or "that was back when they thought maybe Angela and Roy might get together," or "that was when they were thinking that Jim might move on once and for all and be with Karen," and that sort of thing. Pam and Jim is heralded as one of the most well-written romances in television, and it was not planned from the beginning. Another example of a great ship that wasn't end-game from the start is in Parks and Recreation between Leslie and Ben. This absolutely could not have been planned from the start, because Ben wasn't even introduced as a character until the finale of season 2.

I think you're right that a show should be allowed to develop naturally and change their minds about what they do, and I agree 100% that one of the problems with RWBY is that sometimes they'll let the story grow, but then they invariably erase that growth so that they can force in some long-outdated plan that no longer works for the story.

"It was planned from the beginning" is a terrible excuse to ruin your own story and characters, especially if your story is one in which the best parts happened because you went off-script.

All of this. There’s a lot of talk in writing circles about the planning camp vs. let the chips fall camp, but in reality any long-running story is going to need both. One of the challenges is that this combination looks very different depending on the type of story and the type of author(s) involved. There’s perhaps more wiggle room for letting the chips fall in a semi-realistic, character driven comedy series than, say, in a plot-driven action series. “I don’t know yet what sort of relationship these characters will have in three seasons time” is very different from “I don’t know what the situation with the Relics is going to look like in three seasons time.” Whether Pam and Jim get together or not, you still have a good story about their relationship, whatever that may look like. If the Relics are, say, dropped from the show completely, or retconned, or brought together and the characters have to go stupid to not do anything with them because the writers didn’t plan ahead... that’s more of a problem. So it’s this balance between what you’ve thought ahead to and what you need to accommodate. “It was planned from the beginning” can be a horrible way to treat your story if you’re introducing new elements (How I Met Your Mother), but it can also be a fantastic way to treat your story if you’re following that original path (The Good Place). Unplanned elements can be an excellent addition if the author is willing to run with them (Sasha and Tim in The Magnus Archives), or a terrible hinderance if the author is not (Maria and Pietro). Any author needs to be willing to put in that work of figuring out what elements need to be planned, when they can allow the writing to be organic, and once that organic approach reveals something, ensuring that it comes to mean something.

RWBY feels like it’s failing on both fronts right now. The story as a whole doesn’t feel like it’s appropriately sketched out, like we’re just meandering through new plot points until it’s eventually cancelled, not navigating a broad - but still reliable - structure. We tossed out the school structure post-Volume 3, tossed out the Final Boss Salem structure with her arrival in Volume 7, and now (presumably) have tossed out the Relic structure in Volume 9, falling into a void instead of heading to Vacuo. Yet at the same time, each now plot point that’s introduced has just as much chance of getting tossed aside too. It’s not replacing A plot point with B plot point, it’s replacing it with C, then D, then E F G, sometimes within the same volume. We’ve often said that RWBY has too many cool ideas and that’s a huge part of the problem.

Salem is here! But Ironwood is the enemy! The gorillas are back! But they don’t do anything! Ozpin is back too and Oscar is upset about it! But torture is the actual problem! Team JYR are here to save him! But that doesn’t matter! Emerald and Hazel are bad guys! But now they’re not! Redemption is compelling! But now he’s dead and she’s a fixture of the group already! Ren is upset about their choices! But now he’s got a semblance upgrade! Nora cares about the people! But now she cares about Amity! Yang fights with Ruby! But now she’s upset about Blake! Penny is framed! But now she’s the Maiden! But now she’s hacked! But now she’s human! But now she’s dead!

There. is. so. much. going. on. A desire to let the chips fall where they may still requires restraint on the author’s part and a willingness to follow each thread once it reveals itself (unless we’re talking about a story deliberately meant to be meandering, episodic, etc.) As said, there’s nothing wrong with a lack of planning... but that sort of work does require an experienced, talented team to manage. And there is something wrong with making the story so organic that you’re coming up with new ideas every few episodes, not bothering to keep track of what came before this because it will be replaced in another few episodes too. Meanwhile, claiming that it was all “planned from the beginning” in a misguided attempt to make the whole project seem better than it actually is. At this point, RWBY is a revolving door of disjointed, unexplored ideas, held together by confident writers and a fandom inclined to carefully select the parts that do work, ignore/headcanon the rest, and claim that these pieces amount to the whole, planned, ingenious story.

#rwde #rwby #mymetas #plushchrome1212

64 notes · View notes

agirlwhoisaphantom · 3 years

Text

Moonlight- Adam Sackler x Reader

Chapter 2: Mystery Boy

Word Count: 4750

Warnings: Insecurities, fluff

Author's Note: I actually loved writing Shosh and I can't wait to add her more. Besides that this is one of my favorites.

Read Chapter 1

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

Walking to school or work was the highlight of your day. Adam was always there to accompany you on your way there.

At 7 am, he was always outside of the apartment complex expecting you. Adam didn’t care if last night he only got five hours of sleep. He would say to himself that he wanted you to get safe to your location. But deep down, he knew that he got addicted to having your presence next to him.

For years, you had gotten used to walking alone to every place you needed to go to. Meeting Adam, it changed. You’ve gotten used to him being outside waiting for you with your favorite drink. Occasionally, he would bring you breakfast so you could eat on your way there. On the days that you had an exam, he would take out a crumpled piece of paper full of questions to ask you about the subject. He wanted you to be ready for your exam. He cared about your education. Now that he was in your life, he didn’t want to become a distraction.

Within a couple of weeks, you both have known each other. There still hasn’t been the first kiss. You would get on your toes and kiss Adam’s cheek. Meanwhile, he would kiss your forehead. That would be the closest thing that you would get to a kiss.

The two of you agreed to take it slow, even though you both were craving more.

Amelia was the only friend that knew about Adam. She thinks that he is a weirdo, but she was glad that you were finally moving on from Oscar. You were unsure if you wanted to tell your other friends about him, not because you wanted to keep Adam a secret but incase if things didn’t go well. None of your friends would bring him up.

Getting into a new relationship was always scary. Learning how to trust someone new with your heart and your deepest thoughts was a difficult thing to do. You want Adam to know you, to know about the nightmares you have in your sleep, to what you like on your toast.

You were in class while these thoughts were running through your mind. You were spaced out, holding your pen against your paper. “Sunday by 11:59 pm. The Case Study will be due, and no late papers will be accepted” your professor raised his voice. You quickly made a note on the corner of your paper as a reminder.

When classes ended, you thought to yourself, ‘Hmmm, I wonder what snack he’ll bring me today and what shirt he’ll be wearing.’ You received a message from Adam as if you were manifesting him to talk to you soon.

2:38 PM Hey Kid, I’m going to pick you up a little late. The place that I usually get our coffee is hella packed.

2:40 PM I’ll be there soon, hopefully

Receiving that message took you by surprise because he was never late to pick you up. You did appreciate that he told you that he was going to be late.

2:41 PM Hello Goof, that’s okay, just get here safe.

2:42 PM Those muffins better be out of the oven if it’s taking this long.

You loved teasing him, and he loved teasing you. It could be small things such as tickling you and you tickling back to picking you up and spinning you around. The small things brought you two both to laughter and a smile.

Waiting for him, you decided that you wanted to catch up on some of your readings.

On the corner of your eye, you could see Adam holding two cups and a paper bag. “Sorry for being late. Usually, it’s never that packed” He hands you the cup and the paper bag “you requested a muffin, so there is a muffin for the captain” he points to the bag as you were opening it.

You were grateful that he would bring you food whenever he would pick you up from any place. Adam grabs your backpack and puts it over his shoulder. He offers you his hand as you tried to get up. Before he could pull you up, you made sure you had a tight grip on your coffee and muffin.

You both walked around the city for a while as you were finishing your coffee and muffin.

Café Grumpy was around the corner. You grab Adam’s arm, shaking it lightly, and pointing towards the safe “we should go there. It’s one of my favorite places” there was excitement in your voice.

Adam notices where you were pointing, he never told you no, but this time he was hesitant. He didn’t want to go there due to bumping into someone he knew. He had a concerned look on his face. “Are you sure you want to go there? I heard that their coffee is not that great.”

Noticing Adam’s concerned look on his face, you tilt your head. You wanted to know why he was confused. “I’ve been there many times with Amelia. It’s our go-to place to grab a coffee.”

There was a moment of silence as you were trying to read his facial and body language. “Please, Adam, can we go? Just this one time,” you had a pouty face. You knew making that face was Adam’s weakness, so you didn’t do it as often. You grab his hand and look at him straight in the eye “please.” Looking into his eyes, you had puppy dog eyes.

Adam always wanted to please you and get you whatever you wanted. He didn’t like the idea of going, but your happiness mattered to him. He rolls his eyes and gives a small grunt. “Fine. We can go.”

Grabbing his hand, you turned around in excitement and started running towards the shop. You were excited to introduce him to your favorite place in town.

He opened the door for you, and you walked inside. The smell of coffee and fresh cookies surrounded you. It felt like home. Now that Adam was with you, it felt perfect.

Ray was preparing coffee and was facing his back towards you, so he wouldn’t have known if you had gotten there. You got near the cashiers, still holding Adam’s hand. “Hello Ray, there’s someone I want you to meet.” You turn around to see Adam.

The last time that Adam saw Ray was when he had to return that dog and ended up cursing him out.

Ray turns around he makes eye contact with Adam. He ignored him, and his eye went straight to you. “Hey, it’s been a while since I’ve seen you. Where have you been?” He looks back at Adam, hoping that he wasn’t the guy you wanted to introduce him to. “Where is that person you wanted me to meet?”. Ray looks around to see if there was anyone else.

You tilt your head in confusion because you wanted to introduce Ray to Adam. You look back and forth to Adam and Ray. “It has been a minute. I’ve just been busy” You grab Adam’s hand and pull him towards the front, so he can be next to you instead of behind you. “This is Adam, and I wanted to introduce you to him” you had a small smile on your face, but your eyes lit up.

You felt happy that you finally dared to introduce Adam to one of your friends.

Ray had a concerned look on his face as his eye switched from you to Adam, back and forth after he got done staring at both of you. “What do you want to order, Adam? And the usual for you, right?” You nodded.

You both went to sit down meanwhile the drinks to get ready. As you both went to sit down, Amelia walked in.

Ray notices that Amelia walked in and walks in her direction as fast as he could. HE grabs her wrist and takes her to his office. As he closed the door, Amelia panicked, “Ray, what are you doing?” She had her arms crossed and wanted to scream, but she didn’t do it. She trusted Ray.

Ray walks back and forth. He covers his mouth as he is in a shocking state of mind. “Amelia, is she seriously talking to Adam?” He continues to walk back and forth. He didn’t know what type of emotions he was feeling, but one of them was that he was concerned.

Amelia was confused, trying to catch up with what Ray was asking. “Yes, she is” She started to make conclusions in her head as she watched ray pace around the office. “Wait- do you like her?” Amelia wasn’t sure if she wanted to ask that. She didn’t want to be right either.

He stops pacing and looks at Amelia with a serious face. “No, Amelia, I don’t like her. I have a girlfriend” there is a small pause in between. “I’m just- not sure if Adam is the right fit for her” He relaxes and sits on top of the desk.

This conversation continues between Amelia and Ray.

Meanwhile, you and Adam noticed that Amelia and Ray were arguing in his office. It was not that loud, but you could still hear it. This was the first time that you heard Ray and Amelia argue. You wanted to go in and see what was going on. But it was already weird enough with the interaction between you, Adam, and Ray.

You waited for Amelia and Ray to get out. You wanted to ask her what was going on between them. But in case it was about you and Adam, you wanted to wait until you got home.

Amelia approaches where you and Adam were sitting. “So guess what happened at work today” She sits down across from you and him. Amelia noticed that you both were holding hands. “Hello Adam, long time no see” she has a fake smile on her face.

Time passes by as Amelia rants about what happened at work, and Adam was trying to listen to the conversation but couldn’t. He grabs your hand and puts your palm facing up. He starts tracing the lines on your palms with his fingers.

You were trying to pay attention to what Amelia was saying, but your focus was on how gentle Adam was being by tracing his fingers on your palm.

Before you could say anything, you could hear Ray yell for us to get our order in the background. Adam quickly got up and went to get the coffee.

Once Adam left, you stared at him leave. There were sparkles in your eyes. Amelia grabs your hand “hey, googly eyes, are you serious about him?” You ignore her comment. She snaps her fingers “hey, pay attention to me. Do you like him?” You stared at her before you gave her a nod.

Adam got thee coffee tray. Once he turned around, Ray was trying to catch his attention. “Adam, if you are serious about her, please don’t fuck it up. She’s too precious and innocent” Ray was referring to you. Even though he only saw you as a friend, to him, you were like a little sister and wanted to protect you as much as he could.

He turns around to face Ray. “Don’t you think I don’t know that” he turns his head, so he has a clear view of you. “She has made me so happy these couple of weeks” He had a smirk on his face as he told Ray how he felt about you.

Ray didn’t know his intentions, but he could tell that Adam was genuine about how he felt. “Be careful. She’s been through a lot” a small sigh escaped his mouth.

Adam and Ray continue to talk. They didn’t only talk about you, but they wanted to catch up with one another. Adam wanted to know how things were between him and Shoshannah.

On the other hand, while Adam and Ray were catching up, Amelia wouldn’t stop bugging you about Adam. She had the main question if you were serious about him and not just a game you were playing. You got tired of the conversation and started to space out, “Amelia, Can we talk about it once we get home? Please” You didn’t mean to cut her off, but it was an off day for you already.

You didn’t care if the people around you heard you talk about the feelings your felt towards Adam. But you wanted to tell Amelia in private. You felt like things were getting serious with him. You wanted to sit down with her and pour your feelings into her.

Even though for the past half an hour, things were weird between you, Adam, Amelia, and Ray. That didn’t stop you four from having a great time with one another. You all shared a laugh.

An hour passes by. You were already halfway done drinking your coffee when you notice that one of your friends from undergrad walks in.

You got up as fast as you could to go and hug her. It’s been a while since you have seen her. Seeing her for a long time made your day. “Oh my goodness, Shosh. It’s been a while since we’ve seen each other” there was joy in your voice. You hug her for a little while longer before you let her go.

Shoshannah walked into the café, wanting to visit Ray. When she saw you, she was so excited to see you. You were there for her freshman year at NYU. You both developed a strong friendship when you were attending there. You were in your junior year of college when you met her. But you two had a great friendship that no matter how long you both haven’t talked, you both acted like there wasn’t time separating you two.

Shosh hugs you back tightly. Once you both let go, she looks up and down at what you were wearing. “Girl, that outfit you are wearing to totally fetch” she snaps her fingers as approval to what you were wearing.

You spin around to show her your full outfit. She gasps in surprise “you look so hot in that outfit” she had a small little smile on her face as she winked at you.

Ray notices that Shoshannah was there and goes around the café stand. “Hey Shosh, here is your drink and your food” Ray hands her those items.

Shoshannah was grateful that Ray gave her something to eat and to drink.

You noticed how they interacted and started pointing Suttle and looking back and forth as you knew something might be happening between them.

Before you could ask them if they were together, Ray and Shoshannah both nod their head together as they knew you were going to ask them that.

You squeaked very quietly in excitement. You were so happy that your two friends that you held dear to your heart were a couple. You grabbed both hands and started to jump in excitement.

They both smiled as they were happy that you approved of them being together. Ray leaned over to kiss Shoshannah on the cheek before he had to go back to work.

Your focus was now on Shoshannah. You wanted to know everything from the moment they met till the moment they started to date. “Shosh, you have to tell me everything.” You had a bright smile on your face. You were truly happy for them.

Before Shoshannah could give you an answer, her phone rang. She had a concerned look on her face “oh my god, I wish I could tell you everything right now, but I have to go” she looks around the room and notices that Adam was there. She waves at him, and He waves back at her.

You notice who she was waving at, and it was him. “wait, Shosh, you know Adam?” your emotions were going off the roof. You were confused, and you had anxiety. ‘What if they dated and I didn’t know about that. If they did date, would I be considered a bad friend?’ Your thoughts were going wild, and your anxiety through the roof.

Shosh notices that and places a hand on your shoulder “yes, I do know him, and before you ask, no, I did not date him ew.” She showed a disgusted look on her face when she mentioned that. “He did date one of my friend, Hannah, but they ended it like months ago” She was always the one to give you more details than it was needed. She scanned your face on why you looked nervous, then she concluded, “wait, are you dating him? If you are, just a little F-Y-I he can sometimes be an asshole” she puts her hand near her mouth, trying to cover what she was trying to say towards the direction that Adam was sitting at.

If your day couldn’t get any weirder, you thought that seeing Shoshannah would make it less weird. Instead, she comes in here and tells you these random things that you didn’t need to know about Adam. “hey, we should catch up, I don’t want to keep you here any longer” you take out a crumpled piece of paper you had and a pen to write down your number.

After you hand her your number, you hug her goodbye. Once she was out of sight from the café, she texts your number. She wanted you to have her number saved as well.

You walk back to where Adam and Amelia were sitting, with the most confused look on your face. You were trying to process everything that has happened today.

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

An hour later pass by, you were ready to go home. Adam notices that you were getting tired of being there since you were resting your head on his shoulder. He tilts his head towards the door, telling Amelia that we should leave.

As usual, he carries your bags on the way home, and this time he was holding your hand. He rarely holds your hand, but this time he wanted to make sure that you didn’t fall behind and that you caught up with him and Amelia.

Once you both got near the apartment building, You all stood there at the entrance. Amelia notices that he was holding your hand “okay, lovebirds, I’m going to head in so you both can say goodbye” she points towards the door. She looks like she had an idea. Her face lit up at the thought she had. “Adam, you should come in and have dinner with us. Ms. supermodel here makes some bomb as food.” She smirks as she said that.

You could feel the heat of your cheeks risen. Your cheeks were a rosy color as you listened to Amelia mention that Adam could come in and have dinner with both of you. You were nervous about him going into your apartment, but you didn’t show it. You look at both in confidence. “Amelia, that is a great idea. He should come over and eat” you wanted to take control of the situation.

Amelia gives you the looks as if you were sure that you wanted him to go in. You gave her a small nod, it was like you read her mind, and you know what she was going to ask. Amelia points towards the doors “so I’m going to take a quick bath, but in the meantime, you two can go and walk around” Amelia didn’t let you nor Adam respond. She rapidly went inside.

You knew what she was doing. She wanted you to spend more time with Adam alone. In case if you were unsure about bringing him inside. Deep down, you knew it was already time for him to go inside the apartment.

Even though this was the first time Adam held your hand, you wanted to do it more. You grab both of his hands and start swinging them around gently. You look down to see how tiny your hands looked holding his.

Meanwhile, you were swinging his hands. He was thinking about places that he can take you. He looks back at you, noticing that the way your hands looked holding his. He lets go of one of your hands to place it on the back of your head to bring you in close to give you a forehead kiss.

He keeps his lips pressed on your forehead for a couple of seconds. Once he let go of you. He lets go of your other hand and places both hands on your face. He looks at your face admiring your beauty. His head was running wild of thoughts. "Princess," there was a small pause. He wanted to say the right words and didn't want to fuck it up. "You are so beautiful, and I'm happy that you are part of my life now" he was looking at every inch of your face.

He wanted to see every little imperfection you had, even though to him, you were the perfect girl he has ever encountered. He takes a big gulp before he says anything else. "I know it has been a couple of weeks that we have known each other, but I don't want to lose you" he shakes his head slightly, trying to hold in together.

Calling you, Princess, made your heart flutter and your stomach fill with butterflies. You didn't mind him calling you Kid or Captain all the time; you have gotten used to that. This was the first time he called you something else. You were unsure how to respond to what he said. You were happy and wanted to tell him how you felt. You place your hand on his cheek, you slowly moved your thumb, feeling how soft his face was.

You got on your toes, closing the space between you and him. Lips inches away from each other. You place your hand on his chest. You both search each other's faces for any sign of not wanting what was about to happen. You gave him a small nod with a smile on your face. Without hesitation, you grab his shirt and pull him in closer to you.

This was your first kiss with him. Your lips were pressed against his as if you have been craving this for a long time.

He pulls away for a moment and smiles, then slams his lips back down on top of yours. Placing your bag on the ground making sure he does not drop it. This time it was different. He wraps his arms around you to pull you in closer to him, not leaving any room between the two of you. As his lips were on top of yours, he parts them to deepen them. It felt like someone has lit a match between the two of you.

You made a small noise of pleasure as you continue to kiss him. You were practically melting in his arms. You let go of his shirt and move your hand from his face to wrapping your arms around his neck.

You both separate from each other's lips, just staring at one another with the biggest smile. It finally happened, the one thing you both craved from each other. You let out a small giggle because you hadn't noticed that Adam was bent down slightly, so he was able to kiss you.

You grab his hand and walk towards the apartment. Your apartment was on the third floor. Every step that you took, it felt like you were floating on cloud nine. Every time you looked back at Adam, you saw the same dorkish smile from the first day you met him.

Opening the door of your apartment, you felt your heart was racing. You were unsure how Adam would react to it. You look around the apartment to see if there was a mess, but there wasn't. It looked clean. Your first thought was Amelia got in here, and she started cleaning. Wow, that was a first. You did appreciate that she did that for you. Amelia's door was closed. As you were holding his hand, you give him a small tour of the place.

Adam pays well attention to every detail in the apartment. He notices that on the wall a painting with your name on the corner. He gets closer to it to see the details. It was a landscape painting, with a beautiful sunset in the background with mountains and trees surrounding it. In the sunset, there were stars.

In your eyes, that painting wasn't that great compared to what Amelia has hanging around. Adam didn't care about the other pieces of artwork. He only cared about the one that you did.

You walk in the direction that he was standing. You had a slight frown. "It's not the best, but it's something that I'm proud of doing" you start pointing at places on the canvas "this part I accidentally spilled coffee on and tried covering up," you let out a small chuckle.

Adam laughed when you mentioned the coffee part of the painting, "I think that is my favorite part of the painting, Captain" he points to the spot you were pointing to. He looked at every detail as he was in an art exhibit. Those were the strokes that you probably did at 3 am one day—trying to do them, not trying to mess up carefully. /but as careful you were being, you ended up spilling your coffee over it, but you were able to fix it.

You left Adam to continue admiring your artwork when you head to the kitchen to start cooking for dinner finally. You look around inside the fridge of what you can make, and you decided you wanted to make a meatloaf with mashed potatoes. As you were gathering the items, you noticed that one of the things you needed was on the top shelf. 'Great,' you thought to yourself.

You were trying to find the looking stepping stool you have around just if you needed it. The stool was not where it usually was. You took a big breathe and looked annoyed. The next thing you knew, you had to do was get a chair so that you can reach an item on the top shelf.

Adam was already sitting on the couch, looking at his surroundings, searching if there were other paintings that you have made. Other than that paintings, there were photos of pictures that you have taken.

There was a sound in the background as you tried to move the chair from one place to another. Adam looks back to see what was going on. When he catches you on the chair, gets the items you need, and places them on the counter, he gets up and walks towards you.

He stares at you with his left eyebrow rose. On one of the top shelves, he notices a box of cereal, and he grabs it. Without breaking eye contact, he winks at you and gets near you, and whispers into your ear, "shorty," he turns around and chuckles a little.

You were slightly annoyed by him making fun of your height. You murmured to yourself, "well, at least I can be unseen in the crowds, you long boy McKee." Even though he heard your comment, he decided to ignore it as he chuckled to himself.

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

You finished eating dinner with Amelia and Adam. You all shared chuckles and shared stories about one another. It was a good time. It was already night by then. Amelia wanted to go to bed. Meanwhile, Adam wanted to stay a little bit longer.

You invited him to your bedroom because you wanted to spend more time with him. Even though you had a king-size bed, his feet still tangled. You had so many pillows that surrounded you and him.

He was against the headboard in a sitting position, trying to attend to what he was watching.

You put your book down and stopped doing your homework. You went to lay right next to Adam. You placed your head on his shoulder and hugged him.

For the past couple of months, all you've known is grief and pain. Having your head on his shoulder and your arms wrapped around his bicep, you finally felt at peace.

#adam sackler fic #adam sackler x you #adam sackler x reader #adam sackler #adam sackler x y/n #sackler x reader #sackler #adam driver character #adam driver fic #adcu community #adcu fanfiction #adam driver imagine

24 notes · View notes

spookyswhore · 4 years

Text

What You Gonna Do When They Come for You? (Oscar Diaz x Reader)

Summary: Creating a new life from Freeridge may have been more of a nightmare than a blessing. After a life altering decision, what you gonna do when they come for you?

Word count: 2.7k

Author’s Note: this is a request from @tinnadh7 , hope you like. Sorry I’ve been away for so long between graduating and going to college everything has been stressing me out lol

Freeridge still looked the same as it did before you left. Shit, it even smelled the same too. Cigarettes, alchohol, and 15 years later, you were now back in town after your move to New York. Right after your high school graduation, you moved out of state to New York to pursue your dreams of becoming a detective. Watching crime shows like The First 48 and Cops (and singing very passionately to the theme song) only put that final nail in the coffin and cemented your decision to become a part of the police force. Now here you were sitting on your older sister’s couch, a glass of wine sat chilled in your hand and you were clad in a sweater and some sweats with your hair in a ponytail. She lived in Brentwood, maintaning the life you were struggling to build, on your end. Her huge house, quiet neighborhood, and peace were all some things you wanted to acquire at some point in your life. That point is just not now.

"What are you doing here?" Your sister asked. By the tone of her voice, you could tell she wasn't exactly the happiest to see you. After you left, you lost contact with everything and everyone that was involved with Freeridge, which didn’t really sit right with her. After all, family was everything.

“I need somewhere to stay…” You said. You silently hoped that she would let go the grudge she held against you for the last 15 years and not be petty enough to not accpet her sister into her home. You both were raised on ‘Family First’ and you had no idea whether she was going to go against all that you were raised on.

“I’m not going to stay here forever. I just- I just need somehwere to lay low for a few days. I’ll find an apartment. I did something bad and not I’m in some shit that I can’t really explain right now..” You said as your pleas began to fade. You so badly wnated to fill your sister in all of the stuff that happened in the time that you were gone but right now you had no idea what to do and you didn’t want to put her or her newborn in jeopardy.

“Aren’t you some cop or something. Do that stuff that you guys do and you’ll be fine.” She said, completely dismissing you.

“It’s not that simple. I know you don’t really like me right now but just, please, can I stay here? I won't be in your way. I just need a little bit of time to figure this shit out.” You teared up as your voice broke. You hated the unknown and you were really scared of the shit you were caught up in and you didn’t know if you were going to make it out alive.

Your sister took a deep breath. You could see her internal dialogue spread across her face as she tried to decipher whether she’ll let you in or not. After a hot second, she shook her head of her thoughts and looked at your distraught state.

“Yeah. Sure. But I swear if you bring this shit to my home-.” You cut her off.

“I’m not. Thank you.” You got up and hugged her. “Now..” you smirked at her. “Can I meet my nephew?”

She laughed at your question. “Yes you can.” You followered into his room and never seen or experienced anything so heartwarming. The way his little beady eyes gleamed at you and the way his tiny little hand wrapped around your finger just melted your heart completely. She then showed the extra room she had, where you’ll be staying you thanked her again, bringing her into a teary eyed hug.

You woke up at noon with a sweat. The events that led you to your current state plagued your mind and your dreams as you slept and only left you a wet mess, breathing heavily in anxiety. You threw the covers off of your sticky body and trekked youself towards the bathroom and noticed your sister set you up with a fresh set of clothes throughout the night. Silently thanking her, you made a mental note to get a job and save up enough money to get you a whole new wardrobe, seeing as you literally had to get up and go and you were going to be in Freeridge for a while. Once you finished showering, you threw on the fresh set of clothes. In the middle of doing your hair, your stomach made the iconic sound that everybody loves and knows to be a whale call, indicating that you have eaten in the last 36 hours. Between spending money for transportion and paying for food at any diner that was closest to you, you were flat out broke. You began to walk down the spiral staircase, taking note of the white marble and planning to put it in your “future house items’ list. Only hearing the sound of your footsteps as you drew closer to the fridge, it was only right that you assumed you were the only person awake right now, not knowing that your sister’s husband had to get up this early too. Only difference was… he had a job. Rummaging through the fridge with a piece of toast after what seemed like two minutes, at least to you, you were startled by a deep voice.

“Excuse me? Who are you?” He said. You moved your eyes quckly side to side, trying to conjure up a response good enough to not make you look stupid.

“Uh, who are you?” You said, straightening up from being bent over in half, with a gallon of orange juice in your hand.

“I...” he said as he took a few steps closer, “...am Melissa’s husband. Now again who-”. He got cut off by the deadpan tone of your sister’s voice.

“Sean, who are you trying to intimidate now- oh.” Your sister’s words get cut off as her eyes land upon the situation she was absolutely dreading between her sister and her husband. She thought she would be able to put it off and hide her sister long enough to come up with a reasonable explanation to explain to her husband as to why there’s an extra person in this house.

“Yeah. Oh. Who is this?”

“This is my sister.” She said, taking long strides to stand next to you.

“Sister? You never told me you had a sister.” You stood there very awkwardly looking between your sister and her husband. Melissa started fiddling with her fingers and you saw the gears start rotating in her brain. So, calling onto your sisterly duties, you decided to relieve your sister of the stress and explain the long story yourself. After a lengthy 5 minutes, a dark grey cloud of silence loomed over everyone. For a second, you saw a look of pure rage engross her husband’s face but maybe it was your paranoia. Your sister and her husband looked at you, eyes wide in disbelief but you didn’t stay long as you turned and and made your way out of the door. You needed some fresh air anyways. Your legs took you farther and farther away from the house as you made your way towards somewhere that wasn’t the cringey feeling that encapsulated your sister’s home.

Great apprehension crept up in your body as you grew closer and closer to a home you’d never thought you’d see again. The memories you made with the Diaz residence when you were younger flooded your mind. The sexual thoughts you held sacred in your mind about Oscar had gotten interrupted by Oscar’s tall frame standing in front of you. During the time that you were friends, you developed a bit of a crush that only you knew of. It was imperative that you, in the name of the wellbeing of your family, would never get romantically involved with Oscar. With him being this infamous gang leader, it would just end very badly for every loved one in your life. As much as you saw through his machismo exterior and saw him as the loyal, caring, protective man, all of that had to be thrown out of the window as you stood in the present.

“What are you doing back over here?” He nodded. Not being the shy, little high schooler you once were, you sized him up, matching his intimidation. But don’t get yourself wrong, the rapid beating of your heart and the throbbing in your core was almost enough to have you start seeing wedding bells.

“You know, I REALLY don’t think that is any of your business. Bold of you to question me, isn’t it? Got a problem?” Your cop instincts kicked in as you and Oscar stood with your eyes locked with each other. His eyes faltered for a bit in defeat then darkened with what you assumed to be lust. It was then that he didn’t respond but let off but a smirk, small enough for you to see, as he walked away. Shaking your head of your thoughts, you noticed Cesar and the rest of the Santos burning holes in the side of your head. Offering a quick smile and a wave to Cesar, your face dropped as you mindlessly wandered, again, around the streets of Freeridge.

Day turned into night as you made your way back “home”. As you opened the door, the scene that laid out in front of you. There were broken items everywhere. The table, the vase that sat on top of the island in the kitchen, basically anything that can be within arms reach. Then, your eyes jolted to your sobbing sister on the floor, surrounded with the shambles of the house that once was.

“Melissa. What the hell?”

Her head shot up in shock and the mascara-laced tears that so deplorably ran down her face left you in utter shock. You immediately ran to kneel beside her and took the bottle from her hands. You proceeded to ask her what happened during the time that you got some air. As she told you what transpired, everything in the room started to turn red. Anger quickly simmered inside you like some meat in a pressure cooker as the maroon-colored richness that only resembled blood made it’s way into your pupils. Never in a million years would you have believed that life would put you in a situation where your sister is in some deep shit and you would be there by her side. But this was the card that you were dealt. You didn’t have much info on what was going on but you definitely knew you and your sister had to get out ASAP. Something told you that something, or someone rather, is bad. Thoughts on the many ways you were going to kill your sister's husband flooded your mind as you helped your sister up. You told her to wait outside for you while you went to go get her baby to make sure he was safe.

"Yes, baby, it's okay. Shh." You cooed. Your nephew was starting to awake from his sleep and you knew it was a matter of time before he would begin to cry. You grabbed as much stuff as you could--the essentials--and made your way to join your sister outside. The cool night air hit y’all as you came to a dreadful realization.

"Shit."

"What?" Your sister asked.

“We have nowhere to go.” You replied, swaddling the baby on your chest. You racked your brain trying to figure out who the hell in Freeridge was going to accept two random adults and a baby at this time of night. You couldn’t exactly go to certain parts of town because of the Prophets and 19th street. They would chew you up and spit you guys out, just loving the fact that you guys are in a vulnerable position. Your options were limited but they all pointed to the safest one. Oscar.

“Fuck.” You groaned.

“What?”

“We gotta go to Oscar’s.”

“Oscar. No. We are absolutely not going to that bastard’s house.” You sister said as she crossed her arms in retaliation.

“Well do you have a better idea. Because quite frankly, we don’t have anywhere to go and Oscar is our safest option right now. We also have to get a move on before Mr. Incredible Hulk comes back.”

“Fine. Alright. Let’s go.” Your sister huffed. When you arrived at Oscar's place, you knocked on the door until you couldn’t anymore.

“Yo are you crazy?” Oscar said as he threw open the door in frustration. But I mean, could you blame him? You and your sister showed up at an ungodly hour with a fussy baby in your arms and let’s not even get started with the way he was dressed which honestly made you feel some type of way. The way his tank top sat on his body and the shorts sat oh so perfectly on his hips sent a blissful sensation to parts down below.

“We need somewhere to stay for the night.” Your sister spoke.

“What does that have to do with me?”

“Oscar can you not be a dick for 2 seconds and let us in.” Melissa said, obviously irritated.

“Melissa,” you started. “Oscar can we just spend the night, please. There’s a lot that has to be explained but there’s nowhere else in town for us to stay. Please.” You were pleading with Oscar at this point.

“What’s in it for me?” He smirked at the suggestive tone of his voice.

“Oscar, now is not the time. Are you going to let us in or not?” The longer you stood there, you yourself also began to grow frustrated.

It took him a minute to make a decision as he went silent. He looked around to make sure nobody was watching or lurking in the shadows and mumbled a silent “come in.”

You set foot in the house and all of the air left your lungs. Memories of you and Oscar began to drown your thoughts, again. The laughs. The movie sessions. The food. The study sessions that led to him giving up because he was lazy. Everything. You put your nephew down in Cesar’s room to go back to sleep and made sure your sister was okay before making your way back out into the living room. Oscar sat there with a mug, casually sipping whatever liquid was in it. You let out a large breath of relief as you finally got to sit down and relax after the day you’ve had.

“Long day?” His deep voice grumbled.

“Major understatement.”

Soon after, you felt a presence beside you and a dip in the sofa letting you know that Oscar is now sitting on the couch with you. With the interaction you encountered today with your sister’s husband, a little inkling told you something was up. Although you had just met him, you would have never began to think that he would manhandle your sister like she’s same ragdoll and honestly, the reality that it became had the anger inside you boil over. On the other hand, reality also hit that you didn’t have your job or your badge had been confiscated so there’s really nothing much you two can do but run and never look back. In deep thought about your next steps, you feel a hand on your shoulders and it starts to rub the day’s tension away.

“You’re tense.” His deep voice boomed.

“Yeah, well can you blame me?”

“What’s wrong?”

The room becomes quiet as you try and decide whether you want to tell Oscar everything that has happened in the past 15 years.

“Everything I know is gone…” You whispered.

“What?” Oscar replies.

“I thought escaping from Freeridge and trying to create a whole new life was gonna fucking help but it’s obviously not.” You said, beginning to tear up.

“What are you talking about?”

“Goddamnit, Oscar there’s people coming, “you said with a warning tone. “I fucked up. I did some shit that I can’t take back and now-“

“Hey hey shh.” Oscar soothed. He took you in his arms and tried to calm you down as you cried your eyes out. The weight of trying to protect your sister, her child, yourself and everyone around over a senseless decision you made on the other side of the country, was coming down on to you entirely, bearing no mercy. Now the question is, what are you going to do from now on to ensure the safety of you and the people around you?

#onmyblock #spooky x reader #oscar diaz x reader #oscar diaz imagine #oscar diaz smut #oscar diaz #spooky diaz #spookydiaz

339 notes · View notes

vanillann · 4 years

Text

every minute of every day (spencer reid x reader)

hi, thank you for waiting!!

When you work at the BAU, free time is probably the rarest thing you could come by. So when Penelope told me that she hadn’t found a case for the day, I thought that maybe today was the day serial killers took a nap or something.

I sat at my desk, the paperwork that once covered my desk was now in Hotch office, far away from me just how I liked it. My nose stuffed in a book, the small mindless chatter around me fading into the background.

The sigh left my lips as I finally finished “The Picture of Dorian Gray” by Oscar Wilde, placing it to sit on the edge of my desk.

I opened one of my larger desk drawers, knowing I left a book in there at all times just in case.

Suddenly the feeling of the sun from the nearby window that hit the back of my neck left, a shadow ghosting over me.

“Did you just finish this?” Spencer's voice mumbleed from above me. I looked up, his blue tie hitting the side of my cheek, touching my ear.

“Yeah, but I’ve already read it like four times before,” I quickly looked back to my drawer, wondering where that book was. I felt his eyes bore into the back of my head, I wanted to look up but I couldn’t go stuttering over my words.

Spencer Reid didn’t need anymore reason to profile me, that was a plain fact.

“I don’t think I’ve read this one, which is very rare for me.”

I couldn't stop the small smirk forming on my lips, I’ve officially read a book that Pretty Boy hasn’t.

“Well I'll loan you my copy, if you don’t mind highlights and margin notes,” as soon as I looked into his eyes, I heard a gasp.

“You write in your books?”

The look on his face was one of pure horror, I was almost scared I said anything at all.

I didn’t even think about it, Spencer cared about his books more than most things he owned so he definitely wasn’t one to leave little notes about how the author described this part beautifully or how this character developed hastily.

“Well yeah, how else am I going to find my favorite parts again?”

My tone was more confident than I actually felt, I was so scared Spencer wouldn’t see me the same since I was the monster who writes in books.

“Or, you could simply tell me what part you're talking about and I’ll tell you the exact page it’s on,” his once bewildered eyes faded and he looked down at me with some small piece of hope.

“Well I would but I would be bothering you almost every minute of every day.”

I finally moved from looking in the drawer, feeling a slight pain in my back from the way I had been sitting for so long.

“It’s not a bother.”

Spencer words came out rushed , his eyes back to the same state as before but much different.

It looked like he was sacred again, but I was a profiler for the lord sake. His hand gripped the edge of my desk slightly showing he was nervous and he stepped closer to me like he was scared I would run away.

Spencer Reid wanted me to talk to him about books every minute of every day.

“You sure?”

The small gasp of air he let out told me he had calmed his nerves slightly at my answer.

“More positive than a proton,” the way his face tinted red after he said that made a small giggle fall past my lips.

“Well if you're more positive than a proton than I can’t deny that chemistry.”

I would normally feel embarrassed for the corny joke I had made but the breathy chuckle that passed his lips couldn't knock me off my horse.

#spencer reid x reader #spencer reid #bau #criminal minds #criminal minds x reader #derek morgan #jj #aaron hotchner

355 notes · View notes

uomo-accattivante · 4 years

Text

I recently came across a bunch of press articles and photos about Oscar Isaac that are so old, they appear to be out-of-print and pre-date social media. Considering they were probably never digitally transcribed for internet access, I’m guessing that the majority of current fans have never seen this stuff.

Even though a lot of these digital scans are challenging to read because they are the original fuzzy news print, I think there some gems worth sharing with you guys. Over the next several weeks, I will transcribe and share those gems on this page. Hope you enjoy them!

Let’s start with this fantastic 2001 profile piece done before Oscar was accepted into Juilliard:

South Florida’s rising star isn’t just acting the part

By Christine Dolen - [email protected]

February 4, 2001

As fifth-graders at Westminster Christian School in Miami, Oscar Isaac and his classmates were asked to write a story as if they were animals on Noah’s Ark. Oscar turned in a seven-page play – with original music – from the perspective of a platypus. Then he starred in the production his teacher directed.

He hasn’t stopped expressing himself creatively since. Today, Isaac is one of South Florida’s busiest young theater actors, and certainly its hottest. And not just because he’s a slender five-feet nine-inches tall with an expressively handsome face and glistening brown eyes.

Since making his professional debut as a Cuban hustler in Sleepwalkers at Area Stage in July 1999, he has played an explosive Vietnam vet in Private Wars for Horizons Repertory, a pot-smoking slacker in This Is Our Youth at GableStage, another Cuban on the make in Praying With the Enemy at the Coconut Grove Playhouse, the entrancing narrator of Side Man at GableStage, a Havana-based writer in Arrivals and Departures for the new Oye Rep and, most recently, a young Fidel Castro in When It’s Cocktail Time in Cuba at New York’s Cherry Lane Theater.

Beginning Wednesday, he’ll be juggling five roles in City Theatre’s annual Winter Shorts festival, first at the Colony Theatre in Miami Beach, then at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts. But that is not all: During the two weeks he is doing Winter Shorts, he’ll also be playing dates with the punk-ska band The Blinking Underdogs (www.blinkingunderdogs.com), which features him as lead singer, guitarist and songwriter.

Oh, and he just got back from auditioning for New York’s prestigious Juilliard School of Drama.

All this for a guy a month shy of his 22nd birthday.

Sure, you could hate a guy who’s that talented, that charismatic, that transparently ambitious. But the people who have worked with Oscar Isaac don’t. On the contrary, they’re all sure he has it – that magical, can’t-be-taught thing that transforms an actor into a star.

Playwright Eduardo Machado, who put in a good word for Isaac at Juilliard, says “he does have that star quality that makes your eyes go to him. It’s great that someone with that talent still wants to train.”

“He has a star quality that’s rare in a young actor,” adds Joseph Adler, who directed him in Side Man and This Is Our Youth. “Without a doubt I expect to be hearing great things from him.”

‘I JUST LOVE CREATING’

Isaac, who also makes short films, can’t say exactly why he was attracted to acting. He just knows it makes him happier than anything, that it’s what he was meant to do. And he’s been doing it since he was a 4-year-old putting on plays in his family’s backyard with his sister Nicole.

“I just love creating, whether it’s music or films or a character on a stage. I love taking people for a ride,” he says. “In Side Man, every night I would love being that close to the audience. I felt like I was talking to 80 of my closest friends.

“I could feel what the audience was feeling.”

His powerful, mournful-yet-loving monologue near the end of the play, he said, “worked every night. I knew it would get them. I’d hear sniffles.

“But it had less to do with me than with the atmosphere [created by the playwright and director].”

You could understand if Isaac, surrounded as he is by praise and possibility, had an ego as burgeoning as his career. Instead, he channels the positive reinforcement into confidence about his work.

“He has such a charm and an ease onstage, but he’s very modest,” says New York-based actress Judith Delgado, who shared the stage with Isaac in Side Man. “He’s hungry. He’s got moxie. I was blown away by him.

“He saved me a couple of times. I went up [forgot a line] and that baby boy of mine came through. He’s a joy.”

FORGING HIS OWN PATH

The son of a Cuban-American father and a Guatemalan mother, Isaac was never a stellar student. But he found ways of turning routine assignments – like the Noah’s Ark story – into creative challenges.

His science reports were inevitably video documentaries underscored with punk music. He acted through middle and high school, though he had a falling out with his drama teacher at Santaluces Community High in Lantana over his misgivings about a character. When she refused to cast him in anything else, he got his English teacher to let him play the dentist in Little Shop of Horrors his senior year.

His skepticism about authority and love of playing the devil’s advocate have long made him resist doing things the usual way. His post-high school “training” consisted of one semester at Miami-Dade Community College’s South Campus (where he met his girlfriend, Maria Miranda), touring schools playing an abusive character in the Coconut Grove Playhouse’s Breaking the Cycle, and working as a transporter of bodies at Baptist Hospital, where he absorbed the drama of people in emotionally intense situations.

“It was the most magnificent dramatic institute I could’ve attended,” Isaac said. “I was able to observe the entire spectrum of human emotion, people under the most extreme duress. I was mesmerized watching the way people interacted with each other in such heightened situations.

“I learned everything about the human condition, and it was real and harsh and brutally honest.”

Yet even given his propensity for forging his own path, something nudged him another direction while he was in New York making his Off-Broadway debut in December. Walking by Juilliard one day, he impulsively went in to ask for an application. Though the application deadline had passed, Isaac persuaded Juilliard to accept his, noting in his application essay that most of the exceptional actors he admires had acquired “a brutally efficient technique” to enhance their talent by studying at places like Juilliard.

Though he won’t know whether he has been accepted until the end of this month, his audition last weekend went well, he says. He did monologues from Henry IV, Part I and Dancing at Lughnasa, adjusting his Shakespearean Hotspur to a more fiery temperature at the suggestion of Michael Kahn, head of Juilliard’s acting program – though not without arguing that Hotspur wouldn’t be speaking to the king that way.

Isaac, not surprisingly, loves a good debate.

Adler, GableStage’s artistic director and a man who is as liberal as Isaac once was conservative, savored the verbal jousting they did during rehearsals for Side Man.

“He knows exactly how to pull my chain,” Adler says with a laugh. “Intelligence is the cornerstone of all great actors, and he’s bright as hell.

“He has relentless ambition but with so much charm. He’s very hard to say no to. He has incredible raw talent and magnetism that is very rare in a young actor along with relentless energy, perseverance and ambition. I see his growth both onstage and off. He’s mature in both places.”

Part of his growth, of course, will necessarily involve dealing with the rejections that are part of any actor’s life. His career is still too new, his string of successes solid, so it’s anyone’s guess how failure will shape him. But director Michael John Garcés, who picked him for When It’s Cocktail Time in Cuba after Isaac flew to New York at his own expense to compete with a pool of seasoned Manhattan actors for the role, believes his character will see him through.

“Oscar is realistic, but he’s so willing to go the whole nine yards,” Garcés says. “He didn’t go out when he was in the show here. His focus earned the respect of the other actors, some of whom have been working in New York for 30 years.

“He hasn’t had a lot of blows yet, when the career knocks the wind out of you. But he has talent, determination and focus, and if he has perseverance – my intuition is that he does have it – he could achieve a lot.”

FAMILY TIES

His father and namesake, Baptist Hospital intensive-care physician Oscar Isaac Hernandez, couldn’t be more proud. (Isaac doesn’t use the family surname in order to avoid, in his words, being “put in that Hispanic actor box.”)

“I’m ecstatic that he’s probably going to be going to the most prestigious drama school in the United States,” he says. “School will help him focus his energies and give him discipline. He’s got the raw material and the drive.”

Isaac’s mother, Maria, divorced from his father since 1992, is a kidney-transplant recipient who acknowledges that she’ll miss her son if he moves to New York. But, she adds, she wants him “to live out his dreams. He amazes me every day. He calls me every day. I’m very proud of him.”

Even the other guys in The Blinking Underdogs are fans of Isaac’s acting, though it could take him away from South Florida just as the band appears to be, Isaac says, on the brink of signing a recording deal (it has already put out its own CD, The Last Word, with songs, lead vocals and even cover photography by Isaac.

“Oscar’s the leader of the band, a great musician who amazes me and motivates us,” says sax player Keith Cooper. “I’ve been to see every one of his plays. He’s a phenomenal actor.

“I completely buy into his role in every play. As close as I am to him, I forget it’s Oscar.”

His South Florida theater colleagues credit that to Isaac’s insatiable desire to learn and grow.

Gail Garrisan, who is directing him in Donnie and One of the Great Ones for Winter Shorts, observes, “It’s not often that you find a young actor who is willing to listen and who doesn’t think he knows everything. He loves the work.

“He really brought the young man in Side Man to life. When I saw it in New York, it seemed to be the father’s play. When I saw it here, I felt it was his [Isaac’s] play.”

Oye Rep’s John Rodaz, whom Isaac calls “the best director I’ve ever worked with,” gave the actor his first important job in Sleepwalkers at Area Stage. They met when Isaac came to see Area’s production of Oleanna and the actor, knowing Rodaz ran the theater, introduced himself.

“He has so much energy and such a sparkling personality,” Rodaz says. “He knows how to move in the world. He seems to take advantage of every situation in a good way; he’s not a cold, calculating person who’ll stab you in the back.

“[But] he wants it so badly. Everything he does, he’s the leader. When I was 21, I was taking naps.”

Rodaz coached Isaac on his Juilliard monologues and found the experience energizing.

“I got chills just watching him. That happens so rarely. I was so exhilarated when I came home that I just had to go out and run. You just know he’s got all the tools.”

Christine Dolen is The Herald’s theater critic.

###

#oscar isaac #vintage #juilliard #blinking underdogs #area stage company #john rodaz #gablestage #when it's cocktail time in cuba #side man #arrivals and departures #this is our youth #praying with the enemy #sleepwalkers #private wars #winter shorts #the miami herald

180 notes · View notes

writefightandflightclub · 4 years

Text

Out from the cold (Llewyn Davis x reader)

Summary: Llewyn (precious baby) needs your comfort, and oddly, looking after him comforts you too. Fluff but a lil angst to get to the comfort.

Author’s note: I’m doing soft blurbs bc you all deserve a hug from one of our fave fictional husbands. Let’s all destress and be comforted one blurb at a time, okay? (Dunno how many I can do but gonna try and blitz a few requests out tonight. I’m doing these quickly so they’ll be a bit scrappy, please forgive!) ALSO THIS IS EXCITING I’VE NEVER WRITTEN LLEWYN BEFORE AND I’M KINDA HAPPY WITH IT! LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU THINK? (I love this movie so much, one of my all-time favourites, and one of my fave Oscar performances.)

Warnings: just Llewyn swearing, as per. Alcohol and cigs. No drunkeness. Mentions of homeessness / couch-surfing. Mention of abortion.

GIF by @digginmovies

It’s late when he shows up at your door. Or rather, it’s late when you find him in your hallway. You don’t know how long he’s been standing there, because he didn’t even knock. Perhaps he was too afraid to, but by the time you eventually stopped pacing your floorboards and threw a scarf around you, you’d come to fear the worst; that he’d been beaten and left in a gutter or some doorway, or perhpas that he was just stubbornly wandering the streets, preferring to freeze to death rather than “bother” you. Or worse than that... perhaps he’d finally struck lucky and you’d never see him again. Now that he no longer needed your couch, maybe he no longer needed you.

Anyway, all of your fears were entirely unfounded, and it was a shock to find him there, leaning up against the wall. The shortest missing person recovery mission ever known.

“Llewyn?” you question, sighing in frustration and unwrapping your suddenly suffocating red scarf.

His whole body is an apology as he turns his head towards you. Eyes apologetic. Shoulders apologetic. That sorry cord jacket is very, very sorry indeed. Hell, even his curls slump over his forehead in a despondent way, as if they’ve given up too.

This precious man. Why doesn’t he know how special he is? Why does he always dwell in the shadows, rather than allowing himself to be welcomed into this warm, light-bathed apartment of yours. Why doesn’t he realise that he is a light himself, and not a burden? That his presence alone can furnish and illuminate any room. Can compel audiences and, certainly, can move you to train your eyes on him as if he is a star under a perpetual spotlight.

Well, you suppose you should just be thankful that he’s here at all, because he always seems an instant away from slipping into shadow and never coming out again. You are thankful. You are always thankful to find him on your doorstep.

“How did it go?” you ask him, and Llewyn pushes himself up from the wall, despondently shaking his head. He stuffs his hands into his pockets and simply stands there as if forgetting any purpose which might cause him to move. You have to shuffle forwards yourself to give him the hug you feel he so desperately needs, even if he doesn’t know he deserves it. You wrap you arms around him, and it’s a little awkward, and he’s stiff, and he feels of wool and cord beneath your fingertips. Smells of frost and cigarette smoke, and like he hasn’t managed to run his clothes through the laundry in a few days. You make a note to do that for him, if you can coax him into a warm bath later.

“Can I please stay with you?” Llewyn asks in a small voice.

You don’t let go of him, willing him to soften against you.

“Llewyn, you dont have to ask me that, you live here.” You say it like it’s obvious, yet this simple fact is something you are endlessly trying to convince him of.

“I sleep on your couch, because I have no fucking money. Because I’m a piece of shit musician who can’t book a gig except for the Gaslight. And that’s only because I knocked-up a chick who gets me a slot out of pity some nights because she aborted my baby.”

“Llewyn!” you say, heartbroken and disbelieving that he could talk about himself in such a way, and looking, in your shock, like you might come for a piece of him too for thinking so little of himself. But, the world keeps kicking this poor man when he’s down, and he’s running out of energy to keep getting back up, so there’s something in you which can’t blame him.

“I’m just tired. I’m just so fuckin’ tired.”

You bring your hands to the sides of his face, that thick, soft beard under your fingertips.

“Llewyn,” you say softly, searching his melancholy eyes. You want to tell him how talented he is, how important. How special, like you have a hundred times before, but he won’t beleive you. Never does. So, instead, you try something you never have before. At least, not while sober. You dip forward and press a chaste kiss to his lips.

You pull away before his lips have time to react, though even if you had lingered, you’re not sure he would have. You swear that man is so touch-starved that he can no longer recognise affection. That he can no longer remember how to move his lips against another’s. You swear he’s too down on himself that he doesn’t remember how to respond to being wanted.

“Come inside. Your lips are like ice,” you say, and it’s true. You only wish you could thaw him.

Llewyn picks up his guitar case and finally follows you inside, taking his familiar spot on the couch and folding his arms around himself, not even taking off his scarf or jacket. Sometimes you worry that his chill goes all the way down to his bones. Just incase it can help with that, you make him some warm tea and wordlessly pass the mug to him.

“Thank you,” he says earnestly, leaning forward in his seat as you sit at the other end of the couch from him, watching him gripping the warm beverage in his fingerless gloves like he’s never known a warm touch like it.

You sit quietly next to him and allow him to thaw a little, watching the steam rising from the mug as he takes careful sips. It has begun to lash with rain outside, the percussive sound and howl of wind muffled against the window pane, and pleasantly soothing. At least, it sounds soothing to you; Llewyn probably thinks it’s that dark cloud following him around again.

“Have you eaten?”

“Waffles. Had some Gaslight money left,” he says in monotone, staring intently at a particular spot on your hardwood floor. He didn’t make nutritionally sound choices, it seems, but at least he’s had something.

“Good,” you nod. “And do you want to talk about the audition?”

“Nope,” Llewyn responds dejectedly, popping the “p” emphatically.

When he’s drained the cup he sets it down, eventually unwinding his scarf from around his neck and shuffling off his gloves and jacket. Without all his layers he looks a little like a lost baby bird without its nest, or like a winter tree without it’s covering of leaves.

You take a risk in an attempt to perk him up and head towards the vinyl player, dropping the needle on a record you know he likes. And then, you reseat yourself on the couch, a little closer to him this time.

Llewyn finally turns to you, elbows resting on his thighs, looking just a little less morose. “Got any wine? And cigarettes?”

Now, that you could do.

You oblige him, and before long you are sipping on a glass of red, and you let Llewyn rant freely about the audition he doesn’t want to talk about at his leisure, a cigarette bobbing in-between his lips as he talks, smoke wafting around his face and his hair like the ghost of his own curls. You let him rant about the cookie-cutter, soulless, talentless musicians who make it, and the blood-sucking label execs, and the tasteless consumers, and the whole damn thing, until his shoulders look a little less heavy. A little less apologetic. Until he forgets himself and picks up his guitar and begins to mindlessly pluck and strum away.

He starts to sing under his breath, because he can’t help but sing. Because it comes naturally to him, and suddenly he is the only light in your living room. He is under his own super trouper, against the backdrop of the rainy window pane. Light shining against melancholy.

As lovely as he is to look at, with the way his left cheek tugs up with his words and his brow creases with feeling, you close your eyes as his voice filters through into your bones, making you warm from within.

“I love it when you sing,” you say sincerely, and you don’t know it, but your simple, honest words are music to Llewyn’s ears. Those words are something he hears startingly seldom for a man with a talent like his.

Your eyes are still closed when you hear the chaotic thrum of strings as Llewyn sets the guitar down. Your eyes are still closed as Llewyn kneels before you and slides his hands along your thighs, palms down. Your eyes open just before he dips his head and presses a chaste, smoky kiss to your lips.

Your lips do not react. If Llewyn was too touch-starved to kiss you back earlier, you suppose you are too surprised that he might want you back. You want to kiss him, and apparently he wants to kiss you, but you are singing different bars of the same song. Your timing is all off. So, your lips do not meld with his, no matter how long you’ve waited for this. Wanted it. This time too, his mouth was even warm against yours. His hands warm against you. Thawing.

You smile at him, softly. Catiously. As if you might scare him off. As if he is a wild animal who has dropped to his knees for you.

Instead, he remains as you bring your hands back to either side of his face, and lose yourself in his dark, turbulent stare. It is you who suddenly feels catious, as if he is a storm which might swallow you. Might paint you in licks of grey if you don’t first heal his pain. His eyes are raw. Broken apart, and his beautiful soul so exposed beneath them. No wonder he is so guarded. Feels so vulnerable. His heart is so open and so wounded beneath the expletives and the apathy and the lucklessness, isn’t it? It would be so easy to break, like a lost bird far from its nest.

But this time, he stays. Llewyn simply looks right back into your eyes, for once. And when he undoubtedly notices your evident desire there, all he does is question why you are looking at him at all.

“Why do you want me?” he asks you, plainly, shaking his head softly. He doesn’t say more, but you swear you could guess his thought. You could have any Tom, Dick, or Harry. Or a Chad. Some rich, muscly dude with a centre part and a Corvette. I’m nothing. Nobody.

Your mouth forms a bashful, thin line, and you shrug your shoulders, placing your hands over his palms. You desperately want to show him he is somebody.

“I dunno. Why do you sing, Llewyn? Why do birds make music? I just do. I want you. My soul tells me I should, and I listen.”

He looks sad. So sad, So tired, and so you do the only thing your soul tells you to in this moment. You comfort him. You reach up and tangle your fingers into that mess of crotchet black curls on his head. You stroke him and soothe him, and he gives in to you, burying his head in your lap and letting you touch him. Letting you smooth your hands and your fingers and thumbs over his hair, his neck, his back, his shoulders. He wraps his arms around your lower legs and curls around them, still sat at your feet like a stray who refuses to be a house cat, despite how many times you try to coax him in from out of the cold.

“Llewyn, come lie with me a while?” you ask gently, and he looks up at you, unsure. Still, he clambers up from his position and is about to recline on the sofa when you grab his hand. “No, Llewyn. Come lie with me in my bed?”

He gulps, as if you might eat him alive, but he follows as you guide him as if it might be a relief to climb into your jaws anyway, and you lead him by the hand along the hallway and into your room.

He watches you with hesitant fascination as you shrug off your layers, down to your underwear. Then, he follows suit, letting his worn trousers and white t-shirt pool on to the floor at his feet, until he’s standing in only his patterned boxers.

You climb under the covers, shivering at the autumn chill in the room, and you hold the tented covers open for Llewyn to climb in after you.

“Y-You want me to... W-what do you wanna do?”

“Nothing you don’t want to, darling. But if you’ll let me, I just want to hold you.”

He hesitates, but he’s cold, and so, so alone, and he’s so tired of never having anything he wants. So tired that he’s willing to forget, just this once, that he can’t give you what you deserve. Or at least to stop consciously reminding himself of it.

He slots his soft, slim body under the covers, and you let the blanket fall over him. Then, you lie on your back and pull him on top of you, until his body covers yours and his head nestles on the cushion of your breasts.

It is quiet enough in the room that you hear him gulp again, but he doesn’t bolt. Once he’s settled, your wrap him in your arms, your fingers twining in his hair, carding through those thick, tangled curls. Your hands smooth up and down his back, until he is humming softly, his face entirely buried in your chest. “Sweet man,” you soothe, and listen to the sound of the rain outside, and the background noise of the record player filtering through. “I know it’s not much, but I love it when you sing. I wish I could give you riches for it, and record deals. But all I have to give in return is a little piece of my heart, and you steal a piece of it every time I hear your voice,” you whisper gently.

Llewyn is silent, and you wonder if you might have scared him off, but he seems quite content exactly where he is. You wish he would stay, but you know he has a cycle of houses, like a traitourous street cat with nowhere he feels deserving to call home.

For now though, he is here, and you begin to sing gently along to the song filtering through from the living room. It’s one of your favourites. One which Llewyn has sung for you many times before.

You look down at the side of his face, his eyes closed, his eyelashes fanned on his cheek, and his beard twitching as his full lips tug up into a faint smile. Finally.

“You have a pretty voice, dove,” he says, and your heart clenches at the pet name. At the fact you have finally found a way to make him happy. You should have realised it would be music.

“No, Llewyn. It’s nothing compared to you.”

“I dunno. You probably have more chance of making it than I do. Maybe you should have gone today instead.” You worry that he has been tugged back into a slump, but you see he is still smiling, and you recognise the humour in his tone, self-deprecating though it is.

By the next chorus, Llewyn begins to softly sing along too, and your heart flutters as his voice vibrates against your bosom.

You tug in a deep, happy breath, and exhale spring into the autumn room.

Llewyn props himself on to his elbows and shuffles up the bed, until his face is level with your own.

You regard him catiously, feeling suddenly as flighty as he usually is.

“What do you want to do?” you ask him, as his lips hover close to yours.

“Nothin’ you don’t want to,” he says, mirroring your words from moments ago.

This time, when your lips meet, softly, neither of you are surprised. This time, your mouths are both warm and moving together, like you sing the words to a shared song, both melding in time.

As Llewyn curls around your body and snuggles into you for warmth, you hope you can get him to stay. You hope you’ve showed him he doesn’t need to wander in the cold any longer.

He has your heart after all, and you need him to bring it indoors; out from the cold.

#llewyn x reader #llewyn davis x reader #inside llewyn davis #inside llewyn davis fanfiction #llewyn davis fic #llewyn angst #llewyn fluff #coen brothers #oscar isaac

204 notes · View notes

tabloidtoc · 3 years

Text

People, May 10

Cover: Gabrielle Union and Dwyane Wade

Page 3: Chatter -- Mindy Kaling on technology woes, Amy Adams on wanting to go into acting because of Grease, Gal Gadot on telling her daughters Maya and Alma about her pregnancy, DJ Khaled on using Rihanna's skin-care line, Christie Brinkley on showing off her body on Instagram at age 67, Whoopi Goldberg on writing a superhero movie about an older Black lady

Page 4: 5 Things We're Talking About -- Michael Keaton returns as Batman, Jane Fonda recalls her first and best kiss, Maya Rudolph would give Bridesmaids another go, the stars of ER scrub in one more time, popcorn and donuts team up

Page 7: Contents

Page 8: StarTracks -- one day before Prince William and Princess Kate's youngest child Prince Louis turned 3, Kensington Palace released a new portrait of the little royal to mark the occasion; Kate snapped the photo of Louis, who wore a school uniform and backpack as he rode his bike outside their home in London ahead of his first day of preschool

Page 9: JoJo Siwa and mom Jessalynn went for a roller-coaster ride at Disney's Hollywood studios in Florida, Madonna in a three-piece Gucci suit for dinner at West Hollywood staple Craig's

Page 10: Stars on Set -- Rachel Brosnahan was pretty in pink while filming season 4 of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel with costar Alex Borstein in NYC, John Cena flashed a peace sign when he took a coffee break while filming The Suicide Squad spinoff series Peacemaker in Vancouver, Tika Sumpter and James Marsden shot an action-packed scene for Sonic the Hedgehog 2 in Vancouver

Page 11: Katie Holmes was spotted on a Connecticut set preparing to film the drama The Watergate Girl in which she'll play Watergate prosecutor Jill Wine-Banks, Awkwafina and Bowen Yang filmed the upcoming season of Awkwafina Is Nora from Queens in NYC, Melissa Benoist suited up for Supergirl in Vancouver

Page 12: Brooke Shields who is recovering after breaking her femur in a gym accident walked arm in arm after a lunch with husband Chris Henchy, Britney Spears and boyfriend Sam Asghari posed for a photo before attending a friend's wedding

Page 15: Stars in the Sun -- Maren Morris flaunted her new tan while enjoying a tropical getaway, Simone Biles and boyfriend Jonathan Owens cuddled up during a trip to Florida, Lindsey Vonn caught some waves and some rays while paddleboarding in Tulum, Derek Hough cooled off in the ocean during a beach day in L.A., Brie Larson enjoyed a dip while on vacation in Hawaii

Page 17: Scoop -- Life After Their Split -- how Jennifer Lopez and Alex Rodriguez are moving on

Page 18: Inside Caitlyn Jenner's run for governor

Page 20: Heart Monitor -- Tarek El Moussa and Heather Rae Young ready to wed, Pete Davidson and Phoebe Dynevor going public, Zac Efron and Vanessa Valladares split, Billie Eilish and Matthew Tyler Vorce new couple?

Page 23: Jana Kramer and Mike Caussin's messy divorce

* Susannah Constantine -- my royal friendship with Princess Margaret

Page 24: Open House -- French Montana

* Baby Boom -- the latest on Hollywood's growing families -- Marie Kondo and Takumi Kawahara welcomed a son, Nick and Lauren Carter welcomed their third child

Page 27: Ed Helms talks life after The Office

Page 29: Passages, Why I Care -- Lisa Kudrow is working with doctors at UCLA to end the stigma surrounding mental health issues

Page 31: Stories to Make You Smile -- most cats can't stand the water but 8-month-old Marlin can't get enough and his Instagram is @carolinejarvis, a first grader's airplane kits give wings to kids' travel dreams

Page 35: People Picks -- Tom Clancy's Without Remorse

Page 36: Limbo, One to Watch -- Shadow and Bone's Jessie Mei Li

Page 37: Pose, Pet Stars

Page 38: The Handmaid's Tale, Thomas Rhett -- Country Again: Side A, Q&A with Olivia Holt

Page 39: The Mosquito Coast, Inspiring America: The 2021 Inspiration List

Page 41: Books

Page 42: Oscars 2021 -- The Return of Glamour -- the show was unconventional, just 170 guests were allowed in L.A.'s Union Station, and COVID restrictions were strictly enforced, but stars did their part to bring back some movie magic

Page 43: Andra Day

Page 44: Fabulous Fashion -- crop tops, ball gowns and bows ruled the red carpet -- Angela Bassett, Zendaya, Carey Mulligan, Maria Bakalova

Page 45: Margot Robbie, Reese Witherspoon, Viola Davis, Amanda Seyfried

Page 46: Behind the Scenes -- Regina King -- the actress closed out awards season in a custom Louis Vuitton creation

Page 48: Shine Bright -- there's no such thing as too much bling -- Laura Pausini, Vanessa Kirby, Zendaya

Page 49: Maria Bakalova, Daniel Kaluuya, Glenn Close, Tiara Thomas

Page 50: Very Well Suited -- these sharp dressers put their own twists on the tuxedo -- Lakeith Stanfield, Colman Domingo, Paul Raci, Tyler Perry, Sacha Baron Cohen, Alan Kim

Page 53: Getting Ready with Andra Day

Page 55: Getting Ready with Angela Bassett

Page 56: Romance on the Red Carpet -- these couples only had eyes for each other -- Sacha Baron Cohen and Isla Fisher, Halle Berry and Van Hunt, Chloe Zhao and Joshua James Richards, Riz Ahmed and Fatima Farheen Mirza

Page 57: Steven Yeun and Joana Pak, Leslie Odom Jr. and Nicolette Robinson, Paul Raci and Liz Hanley Raci, Aaron Sorkin and Paulina Porizkova

Page 58: Best in Show -- there were A-list stars, groundbreaking moments and social distancing as Hollywood gathered safely to honor the best movies of the year -- Reese Witherspoon

Page 61: Alan Kim, Angela Bassett, Rita Moreno

Page 62: Major Moments -- these artists broke barriers during the most historic ceremony ever -- Emerald Fennell, Chloe Zhao, Daniel Kaluuya

Page 63: H.E.R., Anthony Hopkins, Yuh-Jung Youn with Brad Pitt, Mia Neal

Page 65: Yuh-Jung Youn and Daniel Kaluuya and Frances McDormand, Elton John and Dua Lipa, Andra Day and Winnie Harlow

Page 66: Cover Story -- Dwyane Wade and Gabrielle Union -- Dream Team -- the actress and NBA champ open up about protecting their family, fighting for what's right and why they're stronger than ever

Page 72: George Floyd's Killer Found Guilty -- We Can Breathe Again -- friends and family of the Minneapolis man killed by police rejoice after a jury's verdict and vow with supporters to keep fighting systemic racism

Page 76: Bethenny Frankel -- what I know now -- the irrepressible former Real Housewives star and businesswoman is newly engaged and back as a boss with a new show

Page 80: A Son Lost to Suicide, A Father's Mission -- we loved him every day, but it wasn't enough -- after the shocking death of his 12-year-old son, Brad Hunstable has a message for parents: talk to your kids about suicide

Page 84: Andrew McCarthy -- I was never suited for fame -- the beloved actor, and author of a new memoir, looks back on his enduring films, surviving his '80s stardom and how his affiliation with the so-called Brat Pack was a mixed blessing

Page 88: Prince William and Duchess Kate Middleton's 10-year anniversary -- remembering the big day -- those who made the wedding a fairy tale share their memories

Page 92: Country Singer Thomas Rhett -- fame, family and finding my way -- the star opens up about overcoming struggled with his wife Lauren in their 8-year-marriage and learning to put their family first

Page 98: Murdered Soldier Vanessa Guillen's Fiance -- every day I pray for justice -- a year after losing the love of his life, Juan Cruz is determined to make sure the Army specialist's legacy is never forgotten and that her tragic death inspires lasting change

Page 102: George W. Bush -- painting with a purpose -- the former president avoided making waves, until his party's nativist prompted him to use his art to celebrate immigrants

Page 106: Pop Star Julia Michaels -- how I learned to love myself -- the singer talks falling in love, managing anxiety and writing hits for Britney Spears and Selena Gomez

Page 116: One Last Thing -- Josh Duhamel

7 notes · View notes

dailyrov · 3 years

Text

Well, life’s been stressful, et cetera and so on. Welcome to 2021, which will hopefully be better than 2020, but boy-oh-boy is the bar low.

I was minding my own business today when some kind person dropped a comment on one of my ‘fics (If It Takes a Lifetime). I replied to them and then read through my other replies, relived the story a bit...you know, Something Fanfic Authors Do. I was reminded of something I wanted to post here for a while, but struggled to put into concise wording: my relationship to the series.

My first foray into The Rose of Versailles was in 2008, all thanks to a certain @kippielovesyou who baited me into watching the anime because she claimed the main couple had some things in common with a pairing I was super into at the time. I got hooked. I marathoned the anime and went to work after episode 39 without having gotten any sleep at all. Shift start was at 6:30am. The assembly line started moving. One of my coworkers nudged me. “Hey,” they said. “Did something bad happen? You look miserable.”

I wasn’t miserable so much as emotionally drained. “Just tired,” I said, and focused on my work for the next 8.5 hours. I wasn’t about to tell them that my favorite characters in a television show just died.

I went home and watched the 40th episode. I felt weird afterward. Still drained. Almost...empty.

Not angry. Not betrayed. Just...this really strange sort of blankness that I had rarely felt upon reaching the ending of anything. I recalled a similar feeling at the end of the 1989 film Glory, but no other piece of media could come close to touching it. I would almost call it peace, though the unsettling kind. I’m not supposed to feel peaceful about a tragic ending, right?

But I was hooked.

I downloaded the entire series on a torrent, something I hadn’t done before OR SINCE. I burned it to discs and mailed them to Wisconsin so that my oldest internet friend (now husband) could watch it. He cried at the end. I forced my sister to sit down with me to watch the whole thing. She cried, too. I wrote fanfiction. I drew fanart (it was bad, don’t @ me). I screamed about it to countless friends on Livejournal. I recommended the series to everyone I knew and a lot of those people joined me in writing fanfiction.

What a time to be in fandom!! We flooded the fandom with regular English fanfic for the first time ever. The fandom was hopping. I met two amazing women (Kasia and Loulou) who spoiled me rotten for fanfiction reviews for the rest of my life. I bought the French manga and read the entire thing. I fell in love with one specific page (you get one guess as to which that is lol). I distinctly remember crying twice while reading the manga in a language I could only stumble through: first when Andre tried to count the stairs in the house, miscounted, and tripped, and secondly when Oscar threw herself onto her mother’s lap crying that she was a human being with feelings.

I still get emotional thinking about these scenes, particularly the latter one. The Rose of Versailles got me through so much. I honestly don’t know where I would be, or who I would be, without it. There is no way Kippie could have known that I would need RoV. For her, it was as simple as, “I enjoyed it, and I think you would, too. Because shipping.” And yeah, I’m a shipper who did enjoy it for that, but it became SO MUCH MORE THAN THAT TO ME.

I don’t want to spit the whole long tale out here, but shortly after I obsessed over RoV, I had my own identity crisis. It was a tough time for me, but it also cemented my future as an essayist who focuses primarily on the literary device known as Identity. When I went to college in 2012 that was my focus in literature, and nearly every essay I wrote I chose to explore it in some fashion. Identity. What makes a character, what shapes them, what changes or moves or motivates them. RoV motivated that love for Identity and my essays motivated the English Department chair to give me a selective scholarship (that they chose, it was never applied for). The reasoning they cited to me was that I had shown a rare passion for literature and the characters within. For the first time in my life I felt validated in my obsession with Identity.

I was in my early 20s when I first saw The Rose of Versailles, and something about the character of Oscar spoke to me, but I couldn’t quite name it. I felt that I understood her, and not just for being a woman working in a man’s field. There was something else. But what? I couldn’t figure it out.

A few years later I started seeing an uptick in romantic and sexual identities online. Demisexual. Asexual. Aromantic. Greyace. Something clicked—for me, personally, as well as my understanding of the characters. And years later, Tumblr flooded with information about ADHD presenting in women, and autism in ladies. And my brain went, OH!!!! OH!!! OH I SEE!!

I know a lot of people love Oscar for their own reason, and I think that’s probably one of my favorite things about the series: that the main character is almost universally loved by everyone, and that she receives this love no matter how the individual fans choose to view her.

Something specifically that bothered me many years ago was a certain persistent disdain for Oscar not returning André’s feelings earlier. She was blind, she was stupid, she was mean, and the worst of all: she was Bad for these reasons.

My God, when I tell you now that the scene of Oscar falling onto her mother’s lap in tears over being treated like a doll made me cry, I know why. I spent years of my life wondering why I was born the way I was. I agonized over it. I didn’t want to be “normal.” I was happy being me. But nobody else was. My sister once accused me of not having feelings. I think of that moment every time I see Oscar struggling in RoV. She’s a private person who struggles privately, but that doesn’t mean that she doesn’t feel things. And there Oscar was in the manga, having lived her life the best way she knew how, only to have her father pull the rug out from under her without deigning to even explain himself to her. Suddenly, she was not allowed to have an identity of her own. Suddenly, she was not good enough as she was.

Do you know what marriage would do to someone like Oscar, particularly at that point in her life? It would kill her. How terrifying a fate to face, no control over her own life, or feelings, or even her own body.

There’s an important scene in the manga and anime where André considers that Oscar appears “as cold as ice” to others, but personally recognizes the fire of her passionate heart and finds that endearing about her... I always felt that he liked that about her because it was a side of her only he understood, only he recognized for what it was. Like she trusted that part of her in his presence and knowing this helped that love grow. I still think that’s true.

But beyond that, I think André is on the ace spectrum himself, and understands better than anyone how Oscar’s feelings work. (There’s so much more to it than that, but I’ll leave it there for now...)

The part of the fandom that felt Oscar was selfish or uncaring for not loving André back sooner...miss the point, I think, of her character, and of the romance of the series. It’s not that Oscar is unfeeling. It’s not that she can’t love André. It’s not even that she’s choosing not to love him. In my opinion, it’s that she’s ace and the way she shows her love and care is not only different than a person might expect it to be, but also difficult to express—though whether this is due to her upbringing or her romantic identity (or both!) is up to interpretation.

More importantly, she does not owe him herself.

(And, I think beyond all this, usually people who feel this way really adore André, and while that’s great, I think they’re ignoring a key component of his character, which is: he loves Oscar and never even once so much as suggests that she owes him anything.)

Anyway, that was a long post to say: I view Oscar as ace and ADHD and I wish I could go back to 2008 me and tell myself about both of these things, because it would have saved me a lot of worry and heartache all those years ago. But it’s okay, anyway, because I still felt that connection to Oscar, even without the specific words, and I knew André loved Oscar anyway, even though he knew she was different.

If you’re reading this now, in 2021 or later, I hope you’ve been able to find a similar connection to one or several of the RoV characters. It’s not often we get to see slices of ourselves in the media, written in a sympathetic and loving way. Having that made all the difference to me when I needed it the most. ♥ And I hope it’s had a positive impact on your life, too.

#The Rose of Versailles #rov #essays from versailles #Oscar Francois de Jarjayes #tl;dr: oscar is such a good character

28 notes · View notes

honey-harper-official · 4 years

Text

Evander Wade Hate AU - Chapter 5

MasterList for Evander Wade Hate AU

Word Count: 1811

This is an AU where Evander is secretly a villain because I hate him and also I fix some of the big issues the fandom had with cannon because it’s fanfiction so I can.

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

Danna was on her toes. The whole team was. They were all in a position of waiting. Ruby and Oscar wanted to know who Nightmare was but Danna wasn't going to tell them until Adrian and Nova had worked things out between them. At least to a degree where it was bearable.

She didn't think that they would necessarily be awkward or rude towards one another, as Nova still liked Adrian and Adrian was willing to take the time to understand what she had gone through, but she could see how this would make a large difference in their relationship and the way they were towards one another. She really wanted things to work out for them. Part of it was because she didn't want her brother to get his heart broken. The other part was that she did not have the time or energy to deal with them being awkward and weird with one another while they tried to figure everything out.

Danna sat at her desk, reviewing all the information she had put together.

On April 26th, Nova's parents and sister were shot and killed by an unknown gang member in the Kingsborough Apartment Complex. Renegades arrived too late and after the deaths. There was more information but the file was locked and Danna hadn't been able to get into it yet.

On April 26th of the same year, Lady Indomitable leaves to patrol the northwest part of Gatlon where the Kingsborough Apartment Complex is located. She died of falling but it is unknown how since she could fly. By her was a card that said "One cannot be brave who has no fear," and it was presumed an Anarchist killed her.

The third piece of evidence was that whenever Nova asked the Anarchists about Lady Indomitable's death, they looked panicked and gave no information. Danna wasn't sure if it was because an Anarchist killed her or because Lady Indomitable was on her way to help Nova's family or both. Either way, they knew something but weren't going to say because they knew it could upset Nova or take her from their side which made it important.

But until Danna could access those files she had nothing else to go on but the speculation that they were connected.

She laid her head on her desk and groaned, paper and sticky-notes crinkling beneath her. It was enough to connect them but not enough to confirm anything. It was infuriatingly frustrating to Danna.

A pale hand set down a sheet of paper by Danna's head.

She bolted upright and saw it was just Narcissa.

"Why'd you write down a number and stick it on the mirror?" She demanded, squinting at Danna quizzically.

"I think you can help me," Danna said.

"And why would I do that?" Narcissa asked.

"Well you dislike the Renegades right?"

"Yeah. What does that have to do with this?" She asked, pointing at the paper with Danna's number on it.

"I'm starting to see your points and I think that with your help maybe some change could happen," Danna said.

She had been thinking a lot about what Nova and Narcissa had told her. Both of them had very valid points against the Renegades though Danna didn't think the Renegades should be dissolved completely. At face surface they were a good government with good intentions run by prodigies in a world where people still hated prodigies. However there were many flaws to the system that could be prey to the opposite of that and clearly had been used in that way. With the proper changes it could be better and more effective or a new government plan could be drawn up completely now that some stability had returned to Gatlon.

But there were more important things on the table at the moment. There were things they had to figure out before reform could be made. Danna had a few suspicions on who killed Lady Indomitable and she needed the system made by the Renegades in order to figure it out. And the answer to who killed her could help reform for all she knew.

"You have my attention," Narcissa said.

"However you will have to work with Nova."

Her mouth twitched and she looked a little sad for a second. "I know I said I don't care for her but did she finally leave the Anarchists?"

"Pretty much. I'll tell you more if you agree to help us and prove that you're on our side," Danna offered.

Narcissa was useful and seemed to be loyal to Nova to a degree. She didn't tell anyone that Nova was Nightmare and probably wouldn't ever.

That didn't mean she could be completely trusted.

"What exactly do I have to prove to you. I've known about Nova being Nightmare for ages. If I ever told any person of authority that I'd just be criminalizing myself most likely so why bother."

Danna tilted her head. "But what do you have to gain?"

She wanted Narcissa on their side. She was not only very useful to their cause but also very pretty and in Danna's mind that was worth just as much.

"Look I said I hated Nova but we used to be...." Narcissa trailed off as if she were looking for the right word, debating on what to say. "Close. And I'd like to see her get justice for her family. The Anarchists dragged her constantly with it and I'd like to see her get it on her own without them."

That couldn't be it. Danna actually hoped that wasn't all it. The way she was acting over Nova, like she didn't care but she really did, was familiar to Danna. She had been through it when she broke up with her first and only girlfriend. She tried not to care about her girlfriend but she did and Danna could tell that Narcissa was feeling the same way over Nova.

But clearly Nova had moved on though Narcissa didn't seem so lucky. It must have been a brutal split between them if Narcissa was still hung up on it as Adrian and Nova had been together for a few months now.

Danna wondered if they had been together and the Anarchists forced them apart.

She tried not to think too much about it. She didn't doubt Nova's loyalty to Adrian based on how worried she was about his reaction and it wasn't her business anyways. The more she dug, she would probably only hurt herself. She liked Narcissa quite a lot but wasn't about to fall for a girl still hung up on her ex.

It would be distracting too and Danna couldn't be having that when working on a murder case.

"And what else do you want?" Danna asked.

Narcissa seemed to understand the subtle implications of that phrase and glared at her, pale cheeks turning as red as her hair.

"Reform. If we can figure this out then maybe people will see that the Renegades aren't as good of a system as they seem and at the very least, some improvements can be made," Narcissa said.

"I can work with that," Danna said. "You want to help solve a ten year old murder case by helping me spy and break into things?"

Narcissa grinned.

"Isn't that against your code?" She joked.

"Well it's sort of like you said," Danna said, smiling back. "Maybe it's time to go against the system a little."

"I'm all for that."

Danna held her hand out to Narcissa.

"Friends?"

"Friends," Narcissa agreed, taking Danna's hand. "So what's your grand plan?"

Danna looked at all the evidence she had collected. She needed to unlock the classified information on Nova's family's file in order to see if her suspicions were right. She suspected that Adrian's mom may have been coming to help but got killed there along the way and of course that would be considered classified information. A woman is mysteriously killed on the way to help a family who are going to be murdered that night was either an insane coincidence or the perfect piece of a puzzle.

Adrian could probably figure out the access code on his own and if not then Danna and Narcissa would be doing some spying around Headquarters to figure it out. Or maybe Nova could see if Callum or Snapshot knew and get the answer from them.

Once they had the password then they would need to get into the file itself which Nova might end up doing alone at night in the archives, or to hide from suspicion and the cameras, Narcissa could do it on her own, or even cause some trouble so someone else could do it and get the information.

"How do you feel about spying and causing general chaos through mischief?" Danna asked.

"I'm already doing that now so I'm all for it."

"Good because that's pretty much what we're all going to do and you have the benefit of not being a Renegade which allows for you to get away with a lot of things."

Narcissa smirked but it didn't last long.

"Do you know where I can find Nova? I should probably talk to her before I see her again so things aren't as weird," Narcissa said sheepishly, rocking on her heels.

"Yeah. I'll tell her you want to talk about something," Danna said. "You just text me when you can so I have your number."

Narcissa nodded, grabbed back the piece of paper with Danna's number on it that was laying on her desk, and dissolved back through the mirror.

Danna wasn't sure if she was more or less tense then before. She didn't realize Nova's relationship with Narcissa was going to be so complicated and there was so much more tension then she had anticipated.

Her wrist band went off. It was from Adrian.

Adrian: We worked it out.

Danna: Still dating?

Adrian: Yes.

Danna: Does she know you're the Sentinel?

Adrian: Also yes. I showed her the tattoos?

Danna choked. She knew her brother was the Sentinel and she was never going to let it go that his dumbass had burned away 20 something of her butterflies, though she knew he was extremely regretful about it, but she didn't know he had tattoos. That was something new.

Danna: WHEN DID YOU HAVE TATTOOS!

Adrian: How do you think I got the powers I used for the Sentinel.

Danna: You're an idiot but you're a genius.

Adrian: I know. You tell me that like everyday.

Danna: It needs to be said. Tomorrow you guys can all come here and we can tell Ruby and Oscar about it.

She shut off the arm band and set it aside, trying to go to sleep. Running back and forth and playing messenger between so many people with such a high-stakes objective was exhausting.

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

Tag List:

@thepurpledragon4444 @nova-artino @novas-tunnel-of-anxiety @narcissacronin @princessselene126 @my-littlenightmare @anarchists-87 @riptide-the-mighty-pen @plain-jane-mclain @thecaptainsdamsel @emybain @renegadesnet @itsalittlebitchilly @justsomerandomficsforrenegades @jacihayle @creampuffqueen @alecjamesartino @blueraspberry-official @imnotfluffy @ruby-tucker @everhartartino @evie-artino

Tell me if you want to be added or removed.

#nevada fanfiction #renegades trilogy #renegays #renegades #archenemies #supernova #supernova spoilers #nodrian #danissa #tuckva #osby #oscar silva #ruby tucker #danna bell #narcissa cronin #nova artino #adrian everhart

46 notes · View notes

gifted-burnout-archive · 4 years

Text

Jim’s Best Friend

Part Eighteen - Survival

Word Count: 1723

Author’s Note: This is a shorter chapter, I know, but I promised chapter 19 (out by Sunday, 3am GMT) and 20 will be longer. I wanted a chance to focus in on Y/N, and yeah. This is what I came up with!

WARNING: implied smut, heartbreak, slight substance abuse?

For previous chapters click here.

August, 2007.

Travelling was a lonely business, but it was a must in times like these.

After you quit Dunder Mifflin, you spent the next three weeks travelling around Pennsylvania. You packed up your apartment into storage, you drove down to visit family in Philadelphia, you spent one too many nights in dim lit bars with sketchy men and a lack of self respect. You had just reached a point where you didn't care anymore, and it was time to move on, in any way possible.

Pam had given you a heads up, sending you a text to tell you when the office would be empty. You needed to collect the last of your things in privacy, and Beach Day had allowed you such a privilege. So on a warm August afternoon at around 4pm, you pulled into the Dunder Mifflin parking lot for the first time in weeks, stopping your car by the front door. You wouldn't take long after all, there was no chance in Hell you would be sticking around for more time than needed.

With a determination you saved for the hardest of tasks, you marched back into Dunder Mifflin, taking the stairs up to the office and entering through the front door. The place was deserted, and you spotted your box of belongings on your desk, packed up neatly with a note from Pam scrawled over the lid: "We all miss you." You hoisted it into your grasp, surpised by how light it turned out to be, and started towards the door when you heard a voice call out.

"Y/N." You turned back round and smiled as Toby made his way over from the annex, placing down your box on Pam's desk to give Toby a hug.

"Why are you here? I thought everyone was at Beach Day..." You asked, confused, and Toby gave you a shrug and look you knew all too well. Michael. "Oh, I'm sorry Toby."

"It's not a problem, they needed me to process a bunch of stuff for HR anyway... Corporate is hiring, and a few of the staff have been asked to interview for the position." Toby explained, and you raised an eyebrow.

"Who?" You asked, Toby looking a little uneasy.

"I really shouldn't share... It's against policy." He began, and you batted your eyelids.

"Please? It's not like I'm going to tell anyone." You pleaded. This was the most exciting thing that had happened to you in close to a month of unemployment, and while you should have focused on what that meant for your social life in general, you pushed the thought aside.

"Michael, Jim, Karen and someone who has already interviewed, don't have a name." Toby disclosed, and you stopped when he mentioned Jim's name. As much as you loved Michael, Jim was undoubtedly the best pick for a job in corporate, he always had been. He had charisma and ease and social skills that Michael greatly lacked.

Jim was going to be off in New York by the month's end.

You would never see him again.

"Any chance I could leave Pam a note? I'll be quick." You asked, and Toby nodded, saying a soft goodbye and heading back through to his desk. Once he was out of sight, you rushed around Pam's desk, pulling out a piece of paper and an envelope, taking a second to think before writing.

It was a coward's way out, sure, but this was your moment. To confess to Jim without any awkwardness, no need for a follow through. Just an admission of feelings, and an apology for them, and a goodbye. Knowing how messy Jim could be, he probably wouldn't find it for a year or so, and by then you'd be in some foreign country, with some new job, and Dunder Mifflin would be a distant memory.

It took you no more than ten minutes to write the note, seal it, pop Jim's name on the front and leave it on Pam's desk, and head back down to your car, speeding off for the freeway. And you do so with dry eyes, much to your own surprise. Maybe it was because you knew this was for the best, or perhaps you had cried all your tears away in the last few weeks of travelling and packing.

And so, you just kept driving. You got onto the I-80W and just kept on the road as long as you could. You drove in silence, you last traces of a life half lived in the backseat, a suitcase containing clothes and essentials, your purse on the passenger seat. And while a part of you was happy about leaving, about finally taking the chance to escape Scranton for good, you couldn't enjoy it. It was impossible with the pit in your stomach, the undeniable feeling of complete emptiness in your gut. Had you been thinking rationally, you would have realised that it was a bad idea, that you should have turned back and talked to Jim again, explaining yourself in person. You should have begged for a job from Michael, or at least resigned in person. You should have talked to Pam more about your thought process, should have apologised to Dwight for all the teasing.

You couldn't bring yourself to drown out your thoughts with the radio, or a cassette. Too many songs reminded you of Jim... You were scared something would come on the radio to change your mind about leaving. So you lost yourself in thoughts of Jim.

His smile, his laugh, the way he'd hold you tight when you cried, the look in his eyes when he accomplished something big. The way he rubbed circles onto your arm, or the late nights eating pizza and reminiscing about your first few months together. Late night talks that turned into breakfast chatter. How you'd watch him during movie marathons, gauging his reactions to movies you were introducing him to. The secrets you had shared, the promises you had made, the trips around Pennsylvania you took with Jim and Pam. How you'd both cancel plans for time together, the way best friends would.

By hour five, the night sky now black and the traffic on the roads thinning out, you pulled over for gas, in need of a toilet break and something to keep your energy up. You were in the middle of Nowhere, Ohio, and you hoped you could get to a cheap motel in Columbus, maybe Cincinnati. The first place that looked as miserable as you felt. In the despair you could plan your next steps: whether it was to Mexico, to Europe, to Australia, you didn't care. You had the funds to move away for good, enough to keep you stable for a few months until you sorted everything out.

After filling up on gas and trying not to gag at the stench of the gas station lavatory, you grabbed a few snacks and got back in your car, following the road signs towards Columbus, Ohio. The signs looked so unfamiliar, the names and roads alien to eyes that had been trained to navigate the area around Scranton for their entire life. Twenty-six years old life and you had spent almost all of it within the 119,283 squared kilometres that made up the Keystone State. In fact, as you switched from the I-80 W to the I-71 S, Cincinnati bound, you couldn't remember the last time you drove out of your home state. Sure, you had spent ten months in Spain, but you were still just a representative of Dunder Mifflin. Even you holiday the year before had been so linked to home, it didn't feel like you really left.

This was the first time in your life you were going it alone, truly alone, and it was scary.

A few minutes after one in the morning, and after hours of driving, you found a delapedated Motel 6 with a bar right across the road. It was exactly what you had envisioned to fuel your hollow sorrow: from the flickering lights to the grouchy night receptionist who kept his gaze on your chest as you checked in. Only once your suitcase and purse were with you in your rented room, with wallpaper peeling at the edges and a unknown pair of sneakers in the closet, did you search through your handbag for your phone, the face flashing with plenty of missed calls.

8 Missed Calls:

Pam (3), Dwight (2), Oscar (1), Michael (1), Jim (1).

Moreover, you had a barage of texts, from Pam updating you on the beach day antics, to Michael and Dwight asking where you were, the latter explicitly stating that you GPS tracker had left the state and set off an alarm. Oscar had left a voicemail, wishing you well and asking you to call him back sometime soon, and Jim... Jim's voicemail was only a few seconds long. You decided to face it, and took a deep breath as you listened to it play.

"Uh... Y/N, hey..." Jim's voice sounded like home, the way he said your name still making your heart flutter. "Shit... No, I can't." He sighed, and the voicemail went silent. It broke your heart to hear it, and you shook his voice out of your head, making the split second decision to delete his contact from your phone. And while you knew his number off by heart, maybe it would help you forget, help you move on.

The other thing that would help? Alcohol.

And with the car parked and locked, and the bar only a few steps away, you decided to light a cigarette and make your way over the road with the intent of finding someone to bring home. It wasn't decent, it wasn't right, but temporary pleasure was all you could manage to create in the battle against your own heart.

So, that warm night, now 700 miles from where you called home, you sat yourself down at the bar and ordered yourself a double vodka and cola, with the order to keep them coming. As regulars filed out, party goers came in, and you scoped out the bachelor parties and men on nights out. With little interest in the men who began buying you drinks, your eyes landed on a woman at the other end of the bar, who sent you a wink and beckoned you over.

You would regret it in the morning, but it was nice to not think about Jim Halpert all the time.

Tags: @imsuperawkward�� @rosie2801 @poppirocks @onceuponahuntersrealm @aziggya @thesuitelifeofafangirl

134 notes · View notes