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roswellwrites · 3 years

Text

>posts for the first time in two years

>it's 5k words of the cowboy from dbd eating p*ssy

>refuses to elaborate

>leaves

Pairing: caleb quinn x reader

Tags: oral, fingering, some dirty talk. Relatively tame considering how overboard i went with this imo

Word count: 5052 but we don’t have to talk about it

When you opened your eyes to find yourself standing in the center of Glenvale’s dusty street, you huffed.

You were used to it by now, the way the unsettlingly thick fog would seem to appear from nowhere, rolling unnaturally across the clearing as it picked and chose those who would be unfortunate this time.

You remembered holding your breath, your eyes squeezed shut and hands wringing anxiously on your lap, begging wordlessly for the Entity’s fog to pass you over.

And yet here you were.

Still, Glenvale was not the worst case scenario.

The old fort -while not exactly new territory in the Entity’s realm- was still relatively unfamiliar to you, unexplored, eerie and overgrown.

The air was always strange here, imbued with an undercurrent of dark energy, thrumming heavy and electric as if alive with the misfortune that had befallen the small settlement.

You lazily kicked a pebble in your path, the action unsettling the dust in a way that felt dramatic, even by trial standards.

You noticed your boots first, like nothing you owned in the real world but familiar to you in a way you couldn’t quite place. But it wasn’t just your shoes that were different. Some time between the campfire and the fog and arriving on the dusty streets of Glenvale, your outfit had changed completely.

The dress you wore was a new addition to your (very limited) wardrobe, short in the front and long in the back, layered but surprisingly light, contradictory to the material’s heavy appearance. The fabric itself was a deep maroon trimmed with black, matte with no hint of shine to it, unmistakably high quality though perhaps not quite authentic to the setting. The dress’s bodice was tight and low cut, flattering, you mused, if the eyeful of your own cleavage you got when you looked down was any indication.

You rubbed your gloved hands together idly, enjoying the smooth feel of the fabric and the small ‘swish swish’ of your fingers as they brushed against one another.

Beyond that you wore stockings, the material closer to sheer than opaque, lacy bands fitting you snuggly slightly above your knee as they disappeared under the hem of your skirt.

Your boots had a small heel to them, laced tightly, the cuffs extending an inch or so above the natural curve of your ankle.

You clicked your heels together experimentally, more amused than anything else.

A saloon girl outfit.

Fitting.

You stopped in the dusty street, raising your eyes skyward in awe as you admired the beautiful swirling galaxies and twinkling stars, brighter and more defined than you had ever seen them before. You allowed yourself only a moment to enjoy the sight before hurrying along, side-eyeing a wayward buzzard as it screeched its displeasure from an overturned cart in the street.

You climbed the steps leading to the saloon’s main entrance, eager to get off the street and find somewhere a little less out in the open, your eyes scanning the establishment quickly as you crossed the threshold.

The inside of the old building was a scattering of overturned furniture, tables and chairs covered in a fine layer of dust and pockmarked by bullet holes.

You cast a cursory glance over the dead bodies, frozen permanently in the entity’s snapshot, no longer human bodies but now props to set a stage.

Your eyes lingered on the bar before passing over it quickly, knowing from experience that nothing of value would be found there. You had conducted a thorough investigation the first time you were here -a search for resources of course, nothing more- finding only shattered glass and a single unmarked bottle, the lone swig of alcohol inside burning your mouth in a way that had you tasting it for the rest of the trial no matter how many times you spit.

But off to one side rested the shining star of the old saloon, an old piano that had completely enthralled you the first time you saw it and every time since.

The instrument in question was the oldest piano you’d ever seen, exciting but not all that much of a surprise given the setting. You dragged the rickety chair from its place under the keybed and took a seat, ignoring the small screech of the chair legs on the old floor as you did so.

You spread your fingers over the keys, your touch feather-light, unbothered by the accumulated dust and grime on your pristine gloves as the piano banged out its own discordant tune.

There was the light creaking of worn floorboards behind you paired with the unmistakable sound of heavy footsteps as they approached. Boots, you parsed easily. Definitely boots.

You felt a flash of fear, the feeling lasting only a handful of seconds before you forced yourself to settle again. You took a moment to think of the other survivors that had entered the trial with you. Too loud to be Ace’s loafers, the wrong sound altogether to be Yui’s sandals.

Jeff then.

You straightened in your chair, casting an excited glance over your shoulder. “Jeff,” you beamed. “Check this out-“

“Not Jeff,” the tall man rasped behind you.

Your blood ran cold, all traces of your smile vanishing and eyes widening in dawning horror as your entire body went rigid with fear.

The gunslinger’s hand was on your shoulder suddenly, his grip punishing, and you spun, your heart leaping into your throat at the sight of the man towering over you. Your mouth dropped dumbly in surprise as you moved immediately to stand, to run maybe, a startled noise instead tearing itself from your throat as the cowboy shoved you backwards so hard that the old wooden chair groaned in protest.

You noticed his grin before anything else, crooked and unkind as he looked at you. His eyes were intense, sharp and predatory, alight with the thrill of having caught you off guard.

‘My heartbeat,’ your brain supplied unhelpfully, gloved hand flying to your chest as your heartbeat suddenly roared to life behind your ribs. “Why...” you trailed off, tongue darting out nervously to wet your bottom lip. “Why didn’t I hear-“

His grin widened, strange eyes dragging leisurely and without shame from your face to trail the length of your body. “Reckon you just weren’t listening, girlie.”

You followed his gaze, puzzled briefly.

You could instantly feel the blood rush to your cheeks, fear pushed aside and replaced with embarrassment to find that your skirt had ridden up when he shoved you backwards, the already short hem pushed back enough to reveal the tops of your lacy stockings and garters, decorated with small, intricate bows.

You shifted in your chair, moving instinctively to press your thighs together and smooth the fabric back into place before you stopped yourself, a piece of advice given to you by another survivor ringing clear as a bell in your ears.

“Try to catch them off guard."

‘Sure,’ you thought. ‘Why not?’

You inhaled deeply, taking a moment to compose yourself under the man’s sharp gaze, lashes fanning against your flushed cheeks as you closed your eyes. When you opened them again, you tilted your head slightly, allowing a strand of loose hair to slip free from behind your ear and teasingly brush the tops of your breasts. You shifted forward in your seat, pleased to note the obvious way that the gunslinger’s eyes drifted to your chest again. You spread your fingers over your collarbone, making a show of it as you arched your back to give the man a better view.

“Ain’t above fightin’ dirty, I see,” the tall man scoffed.

You ignored the comment in favor of action. You reached towards him, willing your hands to steady themselves as you hooked pseudo-confident fingers behind the man’s belt and tugged him playfully towards you. “Reckon we might have gotten off on the wrong foot, Mister,” you drawled, tongue darting out to wet your lips in a way that you hoped read more sultry than nervous.

There was a moment where the man simply looked at you, head tilting slightly as if mulling the phrase over. He seemed to come to his conclusion quickly enough, perhaps deciding that your sudden exaggerated southern drawl wasn’t meant to offend or that this wasn’t some kind of trap he was about to fall into.

“That so?” The man grinned. He stepped forward into your space obligingly, seeming to humor the invitation of closeness. His eyes still held that unsettling glint to them, too bright and too shiny. Unnatural. Inhuman.

Regardless, you were pleased when he dropped his gaze again, his strange eyes focusing on the slight rustle of your heavy skirt as you spread your thighs wider to accommodate him.

This was easy. This was something you could do.

You felt your heart rate spike again when he shifted his weapon in his hands, your shoddily crafted facade dangerously close to slipping as you fought the urge to flinch. You allowed your eyes to linger on the gun for only a moment before sliding your gaze instead to his face, forcing an air of casualness. “I bet if you put that gun down, we could find a better use for those hands of yours, cowboy.”

You knew the gunslinger could end this little game right now if he wanted, could pick you up and carry you to a hook and there would be nothing you could do about it. But the thought of escaping the situation (or the trial, for that matter) was no longer at the forefront of your mind, a concept that emboldened but -more importantly- thrilled you in a way you couldn’t quite articulate.

That’s all this entire scenario was; just one big trust fall.

The gunslinger made a small noise at the offer, over exaggerated as if mulling it over. “Hmmm…” he said, stretching the sound long enough that you had to tamp down your fear again. After a brief pause, there was the dull sound of steel meeting wood as the man reached past you to prop his gun in the corner where the piano met the wall.

All at once the tension seemed to leave your chest, like a bubble that had burst behind your rib cage. You exhaled softly through your nose, breathing a silent sigh of relief as you cast your eyes upwards to see now that the large man’s expression truly had shifted from ‘firmly murderous’ to ‘more than slightly amused.’

With his hands now free, the gunslinger reached down to cup your jaw, calloused thumb passing idly over your lips as if inspecting you.

“My, you certainly are a pretty thing, aren’t ya,” he mused. “Never woulda guessed what with all the blood yer always covered in.”

Without the immediate threat of death looming over your head, you allowed your shoulders to loosen. You shifted forward in your seat, one hand sliding from his belt to linger now on his thigh. Time to really go for it. “Maybe we could work out some kind of...trade.”

“Oh?” He asked, smug. “And what could you possibly offer me that I couldn’t just take?”

“Been told I’m pretty good with my mouth,” you said matter of factly, purposely ignoring the second half of the question. You tilted your chin upwards slightly, both hands coming up now to catch the gunslinger’s hand as his thumb lingered by your mouth. You parted your lips slightly, taking the tip of the aforementioned digit into your mouth and closing your teeth playfully around it.

The taste that hit your tongue wasn’t as unpleasant as you thought it might be, all dust and faded tobacco and some sort of bitter machine oil. Certainly not a deterrent. “Just say the word, cowboy, and I’ll get on my knees and take you for one hell of a ride.”

The gunslinger said nothing at first, as if processing the information he was given. Finally after a moment he spoke.

“I’ll do you one better, girlie,” he grinned. He moved quickly then, giving you only a few seconds to process what was said before he was lifting you out of your chair, settling you with ease on the dusty piano top. “Won’t even have to get on your knees for it.”

You froze at the suddenness with which he moved you, reminiscent of a deer in headlights. You regained your bravado quickly however, lifting one thigh and then the other as you freed your dress from where it had become trapped beneath you. “Is that so?” You asked.

He watched the movement of the fabric with hungry eyes, his calloused hands moving from their resting position at your waist downwards, trailing your hips before settling firmly on your closed thighs.

Your heart leapt into your throat as exploratory fingers dipped below your skirt to find the top of one stocking, hooking a finger beneath the garter and snapping it lightly against your thigh. You squirmed, your eyes glued helplessly on his long fingers as he began to push the fabric up and out of the way.

“Reckon you’ll have to pardon my eagerness,” the man said, though the crooked grin on his lips and the mischievous glint in his eyes told you he wasn’t as apologetic as he tried to appear. “Suppose if I was a gentleman I might be takin’ this a little slower,” he mused, meeting your eyes before continuing. “But it’s been a long time since I was a gentleman…and I’m in a mighty big hurry to get started.”

From here the gunslinger made quick work of your garter clasps, his deft fingers moving immediately upwards to catch the edge of your delicate ruffled bloomers.

You could feel yourself blushing heavily in anticipation, too warm, almost dizzying as the heat crept further into your chest and face.

The man paused, his predatory gaze finally straying from your lower half to meet your eyes. His lopsided smirk widened further as he seemed to catch sight of your frazzled expression. “You pick these out?” He asked teasingly, tugging playfully at the fabric.

You opened your mouth to speak, your long overheated brain struggling and failing to churn out a suitable answer. “No,” you said instead, decidedly less than intelligent.

He chuckled at this, seemingly amused as he worked the undergarments down your thighs and then over your boots with ease.

You inhaled sharply at the experimental prodding of his fingers at your entrance, the almost gentle way he pressed forward before withdrawing, spreading your growing slick in his wake.

The sounds of your wetness were already audible -embarrassingly so- even over your shaky breathing and the screech of the buzzards outside. You closed your eyes, attempting to ignore the lewdness of the sound but finding this only served to deepen your blush and make you wetter.

“This doin’ somethin’ for you, sweetheart?” The cowboy asked, entirely too self-satisfied for your liking. “Or are you just easily excited?”

You chose to remain silent, a futile attempt to preserve the small amount of dignity you had left.

When he placed his hand on your middle and guided you back gently, you took the hint, supporting your weight with your arms as you leaned backwards to give him better access. From here he bent forward to get a better look at you, large hands forcing your thighs wide, grunting in annoyance when the brim of his large hat bumped against your stomach.

“Damn hat,” he muttered, his tone edging on irritated as he all but snatched the offending accessory from his head and placed it swiftly on top of your own. “Hold this for me, would you?”

You reached up reflexively, grabbing the brim of the old hat and lifting it slightly where it had fallen into your eyes.

You jolted at the first touch of his lips, sudden and bold, cheeks flushed and eyes squeezing shut at the sensation of his harsh stubble on your delicate inner thighs.

“Christ,” you said, too caught off guard to say anything else.

“We’re just gettin’ started.”

His mouth was hot against you, impossibly wet, the movements of his tongue languid and unhurried, thorough as if he planned to explore every inch of you and thought himself to have all the time in the world. The gunslinger’s hands were fire where they met your skin, his calloused fingertips tracing the edges of your stockings with teasing almost feather-light touches.

You lost yourself in a sea of heat, nerve endings alight with pleasure as he really set to work. In the distance you heard a generator roar to life, so far away that you weren’t entirely sure you had heard it at all. How many was that now? Two? Three?

He flattened his tongue against you, the pressure suddenly merciless when combined with the chapped lips and the barest hint of the man’s teeth. You began to squirm, the noises now slipping freely from your lips before you could stop them. You reached for him, your shaking fingers grasping desperately at his coat collar to drag him in closer before you could think better of it.

The gunslinger shifted his weight from one leg and then the other, hooking his arms around your thighs and dragging you to the edge of the piano top and closer still to his mouth. He hooked one of your knees over his shoulder, grinning against your inner thigh as he found a new angle that seemed to please him.

You made a small noise when he pressed one of his long fingers inside of you unexpectedly, a whine slipping from between parted lips as he twisted the digit this way and that. Your hips jolted involuntarily, the action surprising you in its abruptness. Your roving hands flew from the uncomfortable hold on his collar to scrabble uselessly at whatever else you could find, settling eventually on the cowboy’s hat as it rested on your head.

You grabbed the brim with both hands, pulling it down to hide your embarrassment as the gunslinger worked you open with all the experience of a man who had done this many times.

“Now, now,” he chastised, one arm moving from where it curled around your thigh to reach up, pulling the hat from your hands easily and replacing it atop your head in its original position. He flicked the brim teasingly, knocking it upwards and away from your eyes. “No hidin’, girlie.”

You gasped when he added a second finger alongside the first, your body suddenly overwhelmed entirely by the sensation. You twisted in his hold, thighs quaking and toes curling in your boots as the man continued his onslaught.

He chuckled then, a deep rumbling sound that sent another wave of liquid fire to your lower abdomen.

“You’re a sweet little thing, ain’t ya? So warm and welcomin’ for me...squeezing my fingers like you ain’t got no desire to ever see me go,” he teased. His cheeks were flushed, obvious now where you weren’t entirely sure before, sun damaged face ruddy even beneath the thin layer of dirt that coated him. His breath was hot where it fanned against your inner thighs, something you were acutely aware of as he went on. “…and wetter than a goddamn thunderstorm already,” he continued with a grin, seeming to revel in your squirming. “You sure don’t disappoint, do ya?”

You could feel your face heat impossibly further under the scrutiny, shaking legs attempting and failing to squeeze shut subconsciously as the man’s words began to register in your delayed brain.

He gave another raspy laugh, as if amused by the halfhearted attempt.

“Aww, now don’t be like that, sweetheart,” he grinned, turning his head to deliver a playful nip to your inner thigh. You could feel his large hands on your trembling knees, spreading them to their previous positions and then a little beyond that, exposing you obscenely to his hungry gaze.

As he brought his mouth back to your heated flesh, you realized you had never felt like this before, so entirely overwhelmed and thoroughly devoured.

This was going to ruin you.

There was movement to your right, a flash of pink just beyond the window, and you shifted your eyes to it instinctively.

Ace’s eyes were unreadable behind his reflective lenses, his lips pressed into a tense line, more serious perhaps than you had ever seen him. He lifted his hand slowly, raising his thumb first in question before rotating his wrist nearly a full 180 degrees and giving the universal signal for thumbs down.

You blinked slowly in confusion, eyes moving from the man’s hand then to his face and then back again. You knew you were supposed to say something here, or maybe do something. Your thought process was slowed nearly to nothing as the cowboy fucked you mercilessly with his fingers and tongue.

You were surprised to hear the tall man speak suddenly, the sound all but snapping you from your trance as you continued to stare with unfocused eyes towards the newcomer.

“He’s askin’ if you’re alright,” the gunslinger said, finally dragging himself from your lower half as if that was the last thing he wanted to do. He sneered, shooting a scathing look towards the interruption, impatient in a way you knew would mean trouble for Ace later. “Reckon you should answer him so we can go about our business.” Here he paused, mischievous glint in his eyes as he tilted his head teasingly at you. “Unless yer lookin’ to give the man a show.”

You mulled this over for a moment, seconds stretching on, not so much entertaining the idea of giving Ace a front row seat to your escapade so much as trying to remember how to string together words to make a coherent thought. “Oh,” you said finally, licking idly at your lips. Right. “I’m…I’m good,” you called, your voice cracking under the strain.

“Just good, huh?” The gunslinger teased. His long, dexterous fingers crept back to their original positions on your flushed skin. “Thinkin’ we can do a little better than just good.”

In the time it took for you to realize what was about to happen, he was on you again, delving forward to press his tongue inside of you once more.

You arched in surprise, sitting completely upright now as opposed to your relaxed, blissed out posture from only a moment ago, your own fingers twitching restlessly against your thighs. You gasped softly, eyes darting towards Ace again to find that his expression had changed entirely, smirk curling his lips now where only concern had been before. He tipped his cap at you, head tilted in a small nod and his grin growing ever broader when you reached up reflexively to tip the cowboy’s hat in return.

And then as quickly as the gambler appeared, he was gone, your attention shifting immediately back to the gunslinger as he pressed his fingers inside you again. You reveled in the delicious stretch, the digits thick and pleasant as he scissored them within you. Your legs shook, twinging muscles threatening to cramp as the gunslinger held them in their current positions, stretched too wide for too long.

Your hand dove to grab the edge of the piano top when his tongue found your clit, circling it first before beginning to lick it, all teasing thrown out the window now as he set to work in earnest.

“Quite the gentleman droppin’ in to check on you,” the cowboy sneered between punishing licks. His eyes cut suddenly towards the window, as if scanning for the other man. He gave a pleased hum to see that the other man had moved along, the noise vibrating deliciously against your skin. “Was wonderin’ when he was gonna make himself known,” the gunslinger grinned. “Been standing there an awful long time just a’watchin’.”

“If it was anyone else, I’d probably have the common sense to be embarrassed,” you gasped, head tipped back now as you lost yourself in the rhythm of his long fingers as they rocked in and out. “Ace…” you continued, breath hitching as the gunslinger picked up his pace. “Ace is Ace.”

“Not a fan of that one,” the cowboy said offhandedly. “Beat me in cards once. He cheats.”

“He’s just lucky.”

“He cheats,” the man said again, firm, the tone brooking no argument. The bottom half of the cowboy’s face was shiny and wet, and you found yourself distracted by his tongue as it slid from between his chapped lips to run his tongue through it.

“Okay,” you said dumbly. “Okay.”

There was the abrupt sound of a generator being completed, a sudden blinding brightness that shone through the windows and had you squinting your eyes.

“Ah,” the gunslinger said. “Reckon that’s my cue to finish this up.”

You nearly arched off the piano top when he dove back in purposefully, all tongue and lips and fingers that plunged in and out, in and out. He pinned you easily as you squirmed, movements becoming increasingly more wild as he continued his merciless assault. You could feel the build up in your lower stomach, nerve endings alight as your body struggled to process the gunslinger’s ministrations.

When had you started panting?

“Maybe if you ask real sweet, I’ll - “

“Please,” you said immediately, the word falling from your lips before he could finish his thought. You weren’t above begging. You were so close now, teetering on the precipice, any bit of hesitancy you had before completely thrown out the window in the wake of your impending orgasm.

You began to plead in earnest, the same word spoken over and over again -please, please, please- so many times now that the word began to lose its meaning.

You were beyond incoherent, you knew, entirely incomprehensible as the cowboy worked you so thoroughly that you could swear you saw stars. “Please,” you begged, desperate in a way that would surely embarrass you later. “Please, please.”

The gunslinger said something in his gravelly voice, his tone distinctly pleased but overshadowed by your shameless begging. When his thumb met your clit, you gave a sharp inhale as you were pushed over the edge, less a gentle step into the unknown and more a runaway train careening off the tracks.

Despite the build up, you were entirely unprepared for the orgasm that tore through you. It was all encompassing, intense in a way that you had never experienced. Your entire body shuddered, knees and thighs quaking on either side of the gunslinger’s head, thoroughly overwhelmed. You whined when he continued to lick into you despite the overstimulation, his long fingers still pumping in and out even as you squirmed and twisted.

Then all at once the stimulation was gone and you could breathe again.

The gunslinger began to pull away from you, his voice barely muffled against your skin as he spoke once more. His voice was deep, husky and too low to hear over the blood that still rushed loudly in your own ears.

“What?” You asked, flushed chest still heaving as your head continued to clear. You felt like you were underwater, like you could see the cowboy’s mouth moving but couldn’t make your brain understand what was being said.

The gunslinger straightened, finally returning to his full height as he wiped the slick off his face with one dusty sleeve. He opened his mouth again, a sudden sickening ‘pop’ filling the air as he corrected his crooked jaw. He gave a soft grunt of pain, one hand coming up to cup his face in a way that indicated that this was not an unusual occurrence.

“Said my jaw is hurtin’ like a sonuvabitch,” he repeated, grimacing as he shifted his jaw from one side and then the other as if trying to keep it from becoming stiff again. “I’ll be damned if you didn’t make it worth my while, though.”

You didn’t know what to say to that, overtly aware of the awkwardness as it began to seep back into the situation without his hands and mouth to occupy you.

You made a small noise of surprise when he grabbed you around your waist suddenly, lifting you from the piano and setting you down as easily as he had lifted you in the first place. Your legs felt wobbly underneath you, unsteady, a feeling you tried to brush away as you smoothed your skirt back into a position you deemed acceptable.

The gunslinger watched the movement of your skirt with rapt attention, much in the same way he’d watched it earlier when you were trying to tempt him.

”Nothin’ left to do but leave,” the tall man said idly. That strange glint had returned to his eyes, any warmth fading as he reached behind you for his weapon. “Reckon you oughta head out as soon as those gates are open if you want to make it out in one piece.”

Uh oh.

“Go on now,” he grinned, all teeth, unkind and dangerous in a way that sent a chill down your spine. He stepped into your space, standing nearly two heads taller than you as he plucked his hat from your head. “Trust me when I say you don’t wanna test me.”

You yelped when he delivered a sudden sharp slap to your rear, the contact finally spurning you into action. You stumbled down the saloon stairs and back onto the dusty street, one arm coming up to block the too-bright light as your eyes struggled to adjust.

Behind you, the gunslinger laughed, raspy and low. “Find me in the fog any time, girlie.”

You shot one last glance over your shoulder as you hurried along, making your way quickly towards the nearest gate as it loomed heavy and industrial at the end of the street.

In the distance you heard a scream, ear piercing and guttural. You sucked in a breath, anxiously shifting from one foot to the other as if debating what to do, the cowboy’s words from earlier echoing suddenly in your head.

‘Reckon you oughta head out as soon as those gates are open if you want to make it out in one piece.’

In the distance another scream rang out, echoing across the prairie.

You didn’t stick around to hear a third.

#anyway how do i tag this??#this is like 12 pages on google docs good lord #caleb quinn x reader #i guess?#dead by daylight #does anyone even want to fuck this guy? like is this too niche?#roswell writes

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tokyokookmin · 3 years

Note

Did Jimin really hide in JK's bathroom during the osaka vlive which was started by tae? JK seemed a little uncomfy that day :(

Hey there anon!, You may refer to this video if your too lazy to read haha. snapshots from @ vlive & @opulenthing. The first video explained the whole situation and there's an attachment of the unedited live they had.

youtube

First of all, I'm not that sure about this whole situation and if JM was really in that room, if you saw the 1st vid above... it seems pretty real. I have even read and saw a few speculations that it was JIN instead of JM. Fishy vibes and emotions was portrayed by JK throughout this vlive.

Play this scene for a few times, you can hear 2 voices in the background [Volume up] which is definitely JM and JK. Some said if you looked/observed/listen properly and thoroughly you might hear JK saying 'jimi-'. Anyone here heard that word?

Tae mentioned v-live / calls himself by his stage name. The other members would do the same thing so that the opposing member would know what to expect.

JK was in his room naked, a sexual/ sensual song named "body electric" by Lana Del Rey was being played in the background. His makeup being smeared ....The lighting in the room was dimmed. His tone gave me a feeling that he was some sort extremely irritated. The delay he took to open the door +those mysterious whispers was just so so so so so SUS.

Tae then says 'haaa' and smirked out of the blue moon. lmao. Soon after that once JK lets Tae in his room, TH lifts his robe to see if JK is actually naked.

It's clear that JK didn't read taehyung's message. He was clueless and didn't expect tae to barge in his room just like that. Notice how the picture is becoming wider? Almost 96% of jkk-ers will agree that TH didn't understand the ambience, he failed to understand and comprehend the situation. TH asked JK " whats the song your playing" or something like that and JK replies saying " I don't know, ah ah wait wait" KOOK IS NERVOUS !!!

Jungkook then introduces himself and says :

JK was blabbering and rambling about random stuffs and he said i was about to eat bread again ... this is so funny, he was flustered and nervous the whole time and didn't wanted to be filmed... unusual behaviour .

Also lets rewind back a little, shall we?

Tae comes into the room Jk's bathroom light is turned off. We don't see much action in that area but the light is definitely off when Tae walks in and some armies stated that JM was scattered in the room, we just gotta observe closely!

"Past the bathroom. When they go to the bed area, we see shoes, a coat, and a phone sitting on the chair by Jk's bed. The shoes aren't Jk's."

many armies pointed out on jimin shoes, according to them, they saw jm wearing them multiple times! [ not sure of the coat scenario haha]

By observing the surroundings, you can see that when tae stepped outside of jk's room the bathroom light was off. ( look closely behind tae, you will see a shadow behind him... armys suspect that its jimin holding his phone) But when jk held the camera, the light was on! When Tae finally leaves, the door shuts forcefully behind him .

As of this moment, TH plans to head towards JM's room as he wasn't reading neither responding to taes messages. Another theory we came up with was is that JM actually messaged TH back to ask him to gtfo out JK's room lol.

He stopped for a moment. We suspect that he prob caught something that he shouldn't.. perhaps jm? ( jm and jk bickering) The first vid said that he was told by a female staff to stop the live. We don't really know what occurred.

IN CONCLUSION,

There are tons of speculations and i felt like jm was there. Antis might say that it wasn't JM there but there are plenty more moments to prove that JIKOOK IS 'REAL'. It's really fascinating. I felt like I was nancy drew for a moment lmao- There are tons of blogs that you can find here, This wasn't meant to be in depth.. just a fun blog . stay safe. xoxo. author kesh.

[ i still can't fix my grammar although I had already noticed it, sorry]

I hoped this helped anon!

#kookmin #bts jikook #jikookers #jikook #jimin jungkook #bts army #osakavlive #jm bts #thanks anon!#taehyung #jk bts #vminkook

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starrynite7114 · 4 years

Text

Misconstrued: Part 2

A/N: Good evening my lovelies! I was going to post this last night, but it became too late when I got home. Hopefully you all will enjoy this one! Snapshots and another request will be posted after this! Hope you all will enjoy the update as much as you liked the first one!

Anon: I don't know if this is too specific but could you do something about Angel ruining a date and later admits it because he loves them and then they have some angry smut and late night fluff

Word Count: 7317

Masterlist

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Ever since your date two weeks ago, Angel has not been around you as much. Whenever you were around the clubhouse, EZ was your constant companion and if it veered from the norm, it would be Coco or Gilly. From time to time, you hung out with Riz. It was always fun to exchange information about hair care products with Riz. It was ridiculous just how nice his hair was.

But you missed Angel.

You’re not sure why he avoided you like the plague, but you figured it had something to do with the date and how you confessed your feelings for him. You appreciated the distance cause maybe you can resume the friendship between you two. He would be pleasant with you, but he wouldn’t stay around like he usually did.

And it was fucking hard for Angel.

He tried his best to stay away from you. It would become difficult at times. He missed hearing your ridiculous ass stories about car owners and how much their egos reflected on their cars. He missed hearing you babble about the newest recipe you made for yourself and how you couldn’t wait to share it with him.

It broke him when you would come by the scrapyard looking for him. He would send Ezekiel to deal with you.

=================

“Come on Angel, don’t be a douche, just go talk to her.” EZ snapped. He was so annoyed by this whole situation. This had nothing to do with sponsor and prospect. This was between brothers and EZ was going to strangle Angel soon.

“Ezekiel, I’m busy, just talk to her. I can’t play hard to get if I’m readily available.” Angel argued.

“You’re such a fucking idiot.” EZ walked out of the clubhouse to meet with you. Chucky had informed them that you were at the front office, asking for Angel as you had brought him something.

Angel waited for EZ to come, slightly anxious. He should stop playing this game, he fucking knew that, but he was already invested, he had to follow through.

EZ came into the office and found you sitting down, with a tupperware in your lap, and your right knee shaking away. He noticed it was something you did without noticing and from Angel told him, it was due to you becoming anxious. Angel was such a pain, the fact he was doing this to you made him that more annoying.

“Hey,” EZ greeted you.

You looked up at him and he saw the deflated look on your face that you quickly tried to mask. “Hey Ezekiel.” You greeted him. “Angel isn’t around?”

“He’s working on something, can’t pull him away, you know him. Once you distract him once, he’ll never get back to it.” EZ attempted to joke with you, but you just gave him a tight smile.

“I made him cookies, some sort of peace offering.” You extended the container towards EZ.

EZ gave you a small smile and nodded his head. “There’s no need for a peace offering, Angel isn’t mad at you.”

“Yeah?” You stood up. “Doesn’t feel like it. I’ll see you later boy scout.” You left before EZ could even say anything else.

EZ shook his head, cussing his brother’s name under his breath. He made his way back to the clubhouse, debating if he should just keep the cookies to himself. Angel didn’t deserve these cookies, especially with the way he was making you feel.

“Here, you douchebag.” Ezekiel placed the Tupperware in front of Angel, who was sitting in the clubhouse while EZ spoke with you at the scrapyard.

“What’s this?” Angel opened the Tupperware and it was your infamous cookies that he could devour without a problem on his own. They were addicting. They were white chocolate macadamia. “Fuck.” His mouth watered.

“You know this is really fucked up. She thinks you fucking hate her now.” EZ scolded his older brother. “This is a stupid game Angel, just tell her what’s going on.”

“I did, she brushed me off. I can’t be the only one putting in some effort.”

EZ rolled his eyes. “God, you’re so fucking stubborn.” EZ stood up. “She brought those as a peace offering. She knew how much you love those cookies and that maybe now you’d speak to her like before.”

Angel remained quiet, eating the cookie as EZ watched him.

“You don’t deserve those cookies with the way you’ve been acting towards her.” EZ hissed as he walked away. He paused by the door and turned around, grabbing the tupperware from Angel. “You don’t deserve these cookies.”

“Hey! Ezekiel!” Angel chased after EZ.

After that day, you kept trying to leave Angel food, but EZ was always there to intercept. It got tiring for you that Angel kept avoiding you, so you decided to give him his space. The excuses were lame and EZ knew that, but he tried to cover for his brother.

So you started giving EZ the things you were supposed to give Angel.

The one time you happened to run into Angel, he wasn’t exactly happy about your choice.

“Hey, shocking you’re here, is EZ here?” You asked Angel, trying to keep your focus. Angel was currently shirtless, wiping off all the sweat dripping down his body. You’re thankful that the sun was hitting your glasses so you could squint and not truly see Angel’s ridiculous body.

“Ezekiel? Why the fuck are you looking for him? You need someone to go with you?” Angel was avoiding you, but if he knew no one could be with you, he would go.

“No, I brought him food for lunch.” You held up the plastic you were holding.

“What do you mean they’re for EZ?” Angel noticed that you stopped dropping stuff off from him, or maybe his little brother had decided to keep things for himself.

“Yeah well, you’ve made it very clear you don’t want anything, so I don’t want to push myself onto you.” You placed the food on the picnic table. “Can you just give it to him? I gotta get back to the shop.”

“Hey, why won’t you and I grab lunch? I’m sure you haven’t eaten.” Angel was starting to see that maybe Gilly’s way was not working. He didn’t want to keep pushing you away.

“It’s okay, I have work to do, I just came to drop this off for EZ.” You slipped back inside your car, leaving the yard.

Angel cussed under his breath. EZ came out from the clubhouse, giving him a questioning look?

“Was that Y/N?” EZ questioned.

“Yeah, you making moves on my girl?” Angel knew it sounded stupid, especially how he saw the expression on EZ’s face change.

“You fucking serious right now?” EZ demanded. “You’re the one playing this stupid game.”

“Fuck you Ezekiel.”

“Yeah, well you can go fuck yourself Angel.”

=================

Currently you were getting ready for your second date with Damien. You didn’t tell anyone at the club where your second date would be or that there was going to be a second date. All you wanted to do was enjoy the night with Damien and truly get to know him.

You needed to know if there was a spark, to know if this was going to be worth it. If not, you were definitely staying away from anyone under the club’s influence.

You heard a knock on your door and opened it, the smile on your face slightly faded when you saw Angel on the other side.

“Hey.” You greeted him. “What’s up?”

“Can I come in?”

You opened your door a little wider and stepped aside to let Angel in. He scanned the room making you roll your eyes.

“Who told you I have a date tonight?”

Angel chuckled. “Not important, Damien warrants a second date?”

Angel broke his deal with Gilly today after EZ overheard your plans for a second date. He couldn’t let you go on that date, even if he’s been MIA lately.

“Why do you care? You’ve literally avoided me for the last two weeks Angel, you don’t have a club hang-around to stroke your ego tonight?” That was a low blow, but Angel needed to know that he wasn’t going to always have the upper hand.

“You jealous?” Angel smirked.

You were surprised by his question and you opened your mouth to reply no, but nothing came out.

“I think it’s cute you're jealous, cause you know how much I don’t like Damien.” Angel stepped closer to you, your back was against the door. “I’m jealous querida, I fucking hate knowing that you’re going on another date with him. Why won’t you just cancel and you let me take you out?”

“Angel, I told you, stop with the games.”

“What fucking games? I told you I fucking want you, I like you and you’re still entertaining this fucker.” Angel stepped away from her, frustrated with her.

“You’ve ignored me for two weeks, you expect me to believe you want to be around all of a sudden?”

“It was Gilly’s idea, play hard to get. You have no idea how much I fucking want you.” Angel felt like he was going crazy. All he wanted was to be with you, to start this relationship.

“Listen, I don’t need this right now. Go to Vicky’s get your dick wet, you’ll forget all about this.” It hurt you to say that, but you didn’t want to play this game with Angel. You were trying to put yourself out there. And Angel was your friend, you didn’t want to go back down that road again.

“Do you know how hard it is to fuck another woman when you’re the only thing on my mind? I can’t even get fucking hard without thinking of you.” You slightly gasped at Angel’s confession. You’ve never known anyone as blunt as Angel. He wore his heart on his sleeve, which was why you were surprised to find out he likes you or apparently does. You’ve had conversations like this with another man before, nothing came to fruition, but it was eerie to you how familiar this conversation was. He wasn’t as blunt as Angel, but he always knew what to say to keep you around. Not this time, you wouldn’t fall for it.

“Cat got your tongue querida?” Angel knew he had you. He should have been more straightforward, but he was out of his element. He was finally getting his footing.

“Angel, I have something good with Damien, please don’t ruin it.”

“Is he better than me? Is that what you’re trying to show me? I bet that he won’t make you feel as good as I do.”

“You know what, fuck you Angel. If I want to fuck anyone, I’ll fuck Damien.” You weren’t even sure why you said that. You had no plans on fucking Damien, none whatsoever. But you knew it would get to Angel and quite frankly, you felt good digging it into him.

Angel’s phone rang, preventing him from even replying to your ridiculous ass though.

“This is not finished. Have fun on your date querida.” Angel left after the phone call, most likely club business.

“He is so infuriating.”

You sat back down on your couch, awaiting Damien’s arrival, but he never came. Just a text message.

‘I’m sorry, I don’t think this is going to work out. You’re a nice girl, very beautiful, but I just don’t think there’s a spark here.’

You reread his text message a few times, but eventually you placed your phone down, letting out a sigh.

Guess you’re back in the dating game.

=================

Currently you were at a club party. You had just walked in with EZ and your eyes immediately roamed around the outside of the clubhouse and found Angel. A beer in one hand and his other resting on a girl’s lap as he whispered into her ear. It was like what happened a few days ago didn’t even fucking happen. He was back to ignoring you, which was so much more difficult with Damien not distracting you.

“Well that’s nice.” You bitterly chuckled. “EZ tonight might be a short one.”

It was always a short one, but EZ wasn’t a dick. He wasn’t going to let Angel play his game and get a reaction from you. Angel’s game plan was simple, distance himself from you so you could seek him out and to make you jealous so that you would break and proclaim your undying love for him. But you did technically do that, Angel was just being irrational. Gilly was talking him through the whole thing while Coco and EZ just shook their head, not wanting to further egg on Angel’s stupidity.

You looked around, trying to avoid Angel. You noticed then that there were more bikes than usual. When other charters came to Santo Padre, you tried not to come to the parties since you didn’t want to run into him. You knew that he was a full patch member of Stockton. There were times you couldn’t avoid it, but when he would come, Angel was around so he didn’t even try to come near you. But it was different this time, Angel wasn’t around.

“Which charter is here?” You saw plenty of Mayans' kutte's on their backs flashing that pride proudly, but you couldn’t exactly read the patch at their front.

“Stockton.”

“Okay, I don’t know why I come to these club parties.” You shook your head. You should be over it by now, it’s been years since your last encounter with him. But knowing he used you just to get some head with the Mayans, it never sat well with you. Five years you were his so called friend and every time you tried to walk away, he gave you enough for you to stay. He kissed you once or twice, just to keep you with him, but as soon as he was a full patch, it was like you were beneath him. You never told your Tio Bishop or Tio Marcus. He was a good foot soldier and the last thing you wanted was to cause drama. This was why you promised yourself to never fall for a Mayan, you had too many connections for there to be no ulterior motive.

“Come on, you know you don’t mind the free food.” EZ teased you.

“Does your brother hate me now?” No offense to EZ, but you would really much rather have Angel as your protection detail. He kept any other club member from coming up to you. EZ was a prospect, he was technically their bitch.

“What? Don’t be ridiculous. Angel could never hate you.” And this was why EZ thought Gilly’s plan was ridiculous. You weren’t going to seek out Angel. For people who claimed they knew you, they don’t seem to know you at all. You were going to shy away. You wouldn’t put yourself in the position that would make you more vulnerable. You already thought Angel didn’t like you in the way you like him and this further cemented it.

“He doesn’t really hang around me anymore. Guess the guard detail changed.” You tried to joke around with EZ, but he could tell you were hurt. The incident a few days ago was most likely a fluke. You tried to text him after, and no answer.

“Look, you’re not an idiot. Angel told you he liked you that night at the fair right?” If his older brother wasn’t going to be smart about this, then EZ would take matters into his own hands.

“Yeah, I mean, I don’t know if he actually meant it seeing as how where we are now.”

“It was difficult for him to tell you that and you just kind of brushed it off. We all have our insecurities, but don’t be obtuse, Angel only hung around you whenever you were here. He likes you, a lot.” EZ could see Angel watching them as your back was towards Angel. “Why not put all of us out of our miseries and talk to him?”

“Hey Diego.”

Your reply surprised EZ and he turned around. The man behind him was almost as tall as Angel, muscular built with black short hair. His eyes weren’t even on EZ, it was just on you.

“Hey, you mind giving us a minute prospect?” Diego acknowledged EZ.

“Sure, not a problem.” EZ looked over at you for some confirmation and you couldn’t exactly escape this conversation now. You just gave him a smile.

EZ made his way over to where Coco, Gilly and Angel were sitting. His older brother looked at him as if he grew another head, pointing at you.

“The fuck are you doing?” Angel demanded, watching as Diego spoke to you.

“He asked to talk to her, he’s full patch Angel.” EZ explained, he knew the rules. As much as he wanted to stay, a patch asked him to walk away. There was hierarchy for a reason.

“Yeah, well he’s not your fucking sponsor. If I tell you to stay with her, you fucking stay with her.” Angel’s jaw clenched. Your conversation from a few days back was fresh in his mind. You texted him, but he was across the border dropping off Creeper after he was injured on a run.

Coco knew Diego. Both by association to the club and from what you told him. He was your confidant, the person you trusted with your secrets. Coco was the first person you befriended in the MC and you two remained close since then.

“Shit,” Coco stood up, thinking of a way to get you out of this conversation. He knew you could fight your own battles, but from what he understood, you had a weak spot for Diego, the man who basically used you to get into the good graces of the MC. “Boy Scout, tell Y/N I gotta talk to her.” If Diego had a problem with that, Coco would handle it then.

EZ and Angel, who were arguing about EZ’s duties looked over at Coco, who interrupted their bickering. “What?” They asked in unison.

“Just do as I say, go get her.” Coco would do it himself, but he didn’t trust himself to not give Diego a piece of his mind.

“Shit, is that him?” Gilly knew of Diego as well. Him and Coco came over one night and you three happened to get drunk. You told Gilly all about Diego and all about your crush on Angel. Gilly had a soft spot for you as well. The MC were tough bikers, but they were sweet guys, as long as you didn’t fuck with them.

“Yeah, that’s Diego.” Coco nodded his head. “Prospect, go get her.” He ordered EZ once again.

“What the fuck is going on?” Angel looked at his best friends, wondering what was going on. Who the fuck was this guy?

Gilly and Coco both ignored Angel, keeping their eye on you.

“How are you?” Diego wasn’t going to approach you. He would have done so the few times he had been down here with his charter, but Angel Reyes was always attached to you. He didn’t want any unwanted attention, so he didn’t pursue you. Also, he was certain that you weren’t exactly happy with him after everything that transpired.

“Good, you?” Diego still looked the same, maybe a little older, but he still looked like the same person you had fallen for all those years ago.

“Good, just the same old shit.” He grinned, stuffing his hands in his pocket. “Big move to Santo Padre. Doesn’t look like your scene.”

You nodded your head. “Time for a change of scenery. Besides I followed my mom here and she decided to move back.”

“Yeah, I’ve seen her a few times, she still gives me the death glare.” You two laughed at that, knowing well how that looked like. “I don’t blame her.” He bowed his head, looking at the dirt beneath his feet. Diego was thankful that the clubhouse was full of life.

You didn’t want to have this conversation, at least not a a fucking party.

“Don’t,” you shook your head, holding up your hand. “It’s fine. We’ve all moved on.”

“I haven’t, I hurt you. I’ll always be sorry for that.” Diego knew how it looked. He led you on, which he did for his own benefit. But he truly did cherish you. All that hardships you two had shared together wasn’t for nothing. “Can you just let me explain?” He appeared remorseful, but you couldn’t fall for this again, he always looked remorseful. Even when he tried to apologize for that incident with Regina.

“Some things are best left unsaid.” The last thing you wanted to do was talk about the past that you’ve tried so hard to bury. It didn’t seem like a big deal, but your life revolved around Diego for five years. After he got his patch, he didn’t exactly stop talking to you, he kept you around. You were his unofficial girl that never came into fruition. He would become jealous whenever another guy was around you. He would always reel you back in with sweet promises. To this day, you’re not sure why you let his sweet words get to you, but here you two were now.

“No, it’s not, I fucked up.” Diego tried to talk to you. Everything fell apart when he fell for another woman. You guys were never official and if he was honest, he felt like a dick for keeping you around. He knew that he would be favored since he was close to Alvarez and Bishop’s niece. Was he a bastard? Absolutely, especially when he realized just how much you did for him. “I hurt you, you didn’t deserve that.”

You are tapping your foot now. Anxiety coursing through your veins. You were not ready to have this conversation even though you thought yourself to have moved on.

“Diego, please, it’s okay. Let’s not open back up old wounds.” You couldn’t even look at him. You were awful at confrontations and you tried to look anywhere but him. Where were Coco and Gilly? Where was EZ? Hell where was Angel?

“Look, I get it, but I think it would be best for both of us to try and get closure. I can’t keep avoiding you and I don’t want you walking on eggshells around me. You were my best friend and I took advantage of that.”

“Will told me that she left you. Is that why you’re speaking to me now?” You hated Regina. She was the one who basically put you on blast over your “annoying obsession” with Diego. You felt like a fool, especially since Diego didn’t do anything but watch.

“You know that’s not it.” Diego said through gritted teeth forgetting how stubborn you could be. “That bitch has nothing to do with this.”

“She has everything to do with this.” You gnawed at your lip again, not liking the fact you said that. “Just please leave me alone, you’ve done a good job for three years, let’s just keep it that way.”

“You good sweetheart?” You heard Will Medina, the sergeant of arms at Stockton, asked from behind Diego. He was the only one who knew of your plight with Diego. Your tio’s former prospect who used to pick you up from school as one of his duties as a prospect. One of the hardest things to do was leave him, since he was like your pseudo older brother, but you had to go with your mother, just to get a chance of scenery. It was hard whenever you ran into Diego and Regina.

“Will,” you greeted him warmly. “Yeah, we’re good, right Diegito?”

“For now,” Diego decided to let you go. He’ll try again. He wanted you back in his life. You didn’t belong in Santo Padre. You belonged in Stockton, with your family, with him. He was a bastard, but he was going to make it up to you. This wasn’t about Regina, this wasn’t about the club, this was about you two.

Both men watched you walk into the clubhouse, not speaking till you were inside.

Medina shook his head, sighing at Diego. “She has a good life here Diegito, stay away. She’s happier here.”

“You know her, she’s good at masking her emotions.”

“And you think she’s hiding her unhappiness?”

“No, I just think she wants to come back home, but doesn’t want to because of Regina.”

“Whole world revolves around you, huh?” Medina knew that they may have been part of the reason why you didn’t want to come home, but he doubted that was the main reason.

“You know that’s not what I meant, but her mother couldn’t stand the heat, she won’t be able to do so either.” At least Diego hoped you couldn’t. He wanted you back in his life, and he would make sure of it.

“Who the fuck is that guy?” Angel was standing up now. He saw your foot tapping and he was going to make his way over to you, but he saw Medina approaching. You didn’t even look his way when you made your way inside the clubhouse.

“She really has never spoken to you about Diego?” Coco was surprised that Angel didn’t know about Diego. You were comfortable talking to him and Angel knew a few things, but you withheld a few things from Angel.

“Is that him?” He didn’t know who the fuck Diego was, but he would gladly beat his ass for you. The way your body language changed when EZ left you alone with Diego, it bothered Angel.

“Yeah, look, I don’t want to step on things. She obviously told me in confidence and Gilly since she was drunk. You can ask her about it.” Coco didn’t want your business out in the open like that. Diego was a big part of your life.

“Coco, you’re my best friend. You’ve known how I felt about her and she apparently confided in you that she likes me, why didn’t you tell me?” It was burned in Angel’s memory that Coco knew everything. He wondered why Coco never said anything to him. They were best friends, brothers.

“Because she was so afraid to tell you. I didn’t want to do it for her even if I knew how you felt about her. I encouraged her to tell you, but it’s due to her experience with Diego that she didn’t want to do it.”

“She liked him?”

“Fuck.” Coco closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. He looked at the women around them. “Leave us.” They dispersed quickly, he didn’t need them gossiping about you. “Diego was her best friend, they became friends their senior year of high school. Once they graduated, Diego expressed his desire to prospect for the Mayans, but they didn’t take him. Using her connections, she somehow convinced Medina to sponsor him.” Coco lit up a cigarette and took a puff before continuing. “He treated her just like you did. He pretended to have feelings for her to keep her by his side even after he got his patch. A few years after he got his patch, a woman came and he fell for her. Bitch called Y/N out, saying that Diego will never have feelings for her and her obsession with Diego was annoying. He just watched as she berated her and after that, Y/N has stayed away from him. She was humiliated and broken apart since she thought Diego had feelings for her, but he didn’t.”

Angel sat back down then, upset at what he was hearing. Who the fuck did Diego think he was? He used you and couldn’t even defend you from a psychotic woman.

“How could Bishop and Alvarez let him patch?” Angel finally spoke up after a few minutes.

“Because she’s never told anyone. She cared about the guy regardless of his past indiscretions.” Gilly answered. “Fuck, I didn’t know all of that.”

“That’s why she thinks you’re just talking to her because of Bishop. That you were bestowed with the duty of being her bodyguard.” Gilly explained.

“I’m already a patch, and even if I wasn’t, I wouldn’t fucking use her to get my patch.” Angel fumed.

“Hermano, calmate, that’s not what I meant.” Coco shook his head. “She knows who she is and who she’s connected to. It’s just her thinking that you stayed around her because of orders from prez. She just has a hard time separating the two due to being burned before.”

Angel felt like an asshole now. What he’s been doing, it basically cemented your thoughts about the whole situation.

Angel was done with the games. He was going to show you that he was serious. Fuck Diego. He’ll show you how much you were worth it.

You were able to avoid Diego the rest of the night. You were also able to ignore Angel who for some reason decided he was going to talk to you now. The mixed signals and mood swings were too much. Thankfully he left early and you didn’t have to deal with him. He most likely brought a woman home, which you didn’t look forward to since he was your neighbor.

That’s right.

You lived right next to Angel.

It was opportunistic, but Angel had told Bishop that the apartment beside him was open. Better way for a Mayan to be close by to ensure your safety.

Opening the door, you almost had a heart attack when you found Angel waiting for you at your apartment.

“Fuck! Angel, what the hell is the matter with you?” You closed the door behind you, taking a deep breath to calm your heart rate.

“You wouldn’t talk to me, so I figured I’d wait here.” Angel was smoking, sitting on your couch in silence. He looked so damn good.

“Couldn’t you just have waited at your apartment?”

“Last time I waited at my apartment, I had to barge in here to make sure you weren’t going to fuck Damien.” You has dropped something, causing you to shriek. Angel thought you had come home with Damien, but in reality, you had been at your apartment the whole day and dropped a glass. Angel barged in anyway, looking around wildly to see if Damien was there. You haven’t exactly told anyone that Damien was no longer dating you.

“And as I’ve said before, I don’t know how that is any of your fucking business.” You’re not sure where this confidence came from, but it was here and you plan to utilize it.

“It is my fucking business, why wouldn’t it be?” Angel stood up, putting out his cigarette on the ashtray. “You doing okay?”

“Yes, why wouldn’t I be?” You walked past him, not wanting to be close to Angel right now. Taking off your jacket, Angel whistled at the shirt you were wearing, thankful you never took off your jacket.

“Who was that guy at the clubhouse?” Angel came in here with the intention of having you tell him about Diego. He didn’t want to throw Coco under the bus.

“None of your business.” The last thing you wanted was to talk to Angel about Diego. The man who you thought would end up like him.

“Come on querida, I didn’t come here to fight. I’ve missed you. Talk to me.”

“There’s nothing to talk about. He’s just an old friend from up north.” You gave him the cliff notes version of your relationship with Diego. This wasn’t Angel’s business anyway.

You went inside your room, closing the door hoping Angel would get the hint. You changed into some basketball shorts that you absolutely loved due to the comfort and a white shirt you had stolen from Angel during one of the times you slept over his home after a scary film, not wanting to be alone. Coming out of your room, you weren’t surprised that Angel was right outside of your door, what did surprise you was when he crashed his lips on yours, your eyes widening as he did. Before long, your eyes closed giving in to the kiss. How could you deny him? You’ve liked Angel for so long and now he was kissing you.

His hands slipped under your shirt, caressing your sides as he opened your mouth with his tongue. You sighed arching your back against him.

Pulling away from you, you two were breathing hard, his head resting on your forehead.

“I like you, Y/N.” He didn’t want to say the other L word yet, that might just scare you away. For now, he would settle with the word like.

“I like you too Angel.” You replied, kissing him one more time before pulling away.

“I know you’ve been burned before, but I won’t do that to you, I could never do that to you.” He began to walk as you walked backwards, your knees hit the edge of your bed causing you to sit down. “I want you, do you want me?”

Was this the right time to tell Angel you were still a virgin?

“Yes.”

Angel groaned, kissing you again as he laid you down on your bed. He hovered over you, making sure he didn’t put his weight on you. Pulling away, your lips chased after him making Angel chuckle.

“I’ve been dreaming about this mi dulce,” he moved your shirt up, well his shirt, shivers running up your spine. You’ve never gotten this far with anyone. You’ve kissed people, but nothing like this. “Your skin is so fucking soft.” He assisted you on taking off your shirt, your bra was a deep shade of purple. “Purple’s my new favorite color.”

You became nervous then when Angel caressed your breast, softly squeezing it causing you to moan. You’ve never felt that sensation before, everything was so new to you.

“Angel, before we go any further, I have to tell you something.” You placed your hand on top of his, stopping his sinful ministrations.

“What’s up baby?” Angel’s eyes were dilated, looking at you wish such desire.

“I’m a virgin.”

“You’re a what?” Angel gave you an incredulous look.

Before you could reply, there was a knock on your door. You two looked at one another, before you grabbed the shirt that Angel just discarded. You quickly made your way over to the door, embarrassed by Angel’s reaction. You were certain he would leave after that bombshell.

Reaching to open the door, Angel pulled you back against his front, “I got it.” He informed you as he moved you behind him. He opened the door and your breath hitched when you saw Diego on the other side.

Diego’s face went from worried to anger in less than two seconds after his eyes landed on Angel.

“What the fuck is this?” He demanded.

“Diego, can I help you?” Angel further blocked you from Diego’s view, putting himself between you and Diego.

“Yeah, I need to talk to Y/N.” Diego straightened his form, trying to assert some type of dominance. But it wasn’t working on Angel. “So if you don’t mind, you can leave her with me.”

“Don’t think that’s going to happen. She’s my girl, you expect me to leave you all alone with her?” Angel scoffed. “What business do you have with her?”

“Your girl? She wasn’t with you a few hours ago. If I remember correctly, you had a whore sitting on your lap for a major part of the night.” Diego smirked. He wasn’t sure why the fuck Angel was here, but he wasn’t leaving till you two spoke.

Angel smirked. “I suggest you walk away before we have a problem here.”

“We already have one.”

Next thing you knew, Angel punched Diego on the face, tackling him to the ground.

“Angel!” You yelled his name, trying to pull him away from Diego. “Stop it, come on, he’s not worth it.”

But he didn’t hear you. Angel continued to land shots on Diego’s face and body. But then Diego was able to hit Angel on his rib cage, knocking the air out of Angel. He turned them around, with Diego now landing the blows.

“Diego, please stop it!” You pleaded with him and tried to push him off Angel.

“Diego!” You heard Medina running towards you three, pulling off Diego from Angel. He came with Diego to assure that he could intervene when you became upset. He was smoking by his motorcycle when he heard the commotion.

Angel stood up, and was going to lunge for him again, but you wrapped your arms around him, trying your best to hold him back.

“Please stop, he’s not worth it.”

Angel and Diego glared at one another. Diego was bleeding profusely from his lips while Angel had some blood coming out of his as well. His ribs hurt the most, but he had too much adrenaline coursing through his body.

“Stay the fuck away from her.” Angel wanted one last time. Spitting out the blood that formed inside his mouth.

“Fuck you Reyes,” Diego snarled. “She can’t be yours when she’s always been mine!” Diego shouted back as Medina pulled him away.

Angel led you back in your apartment, closing the door and locking it. You looked at him as he leaned against the door.

“You didn’t have to hit him.” You crossed your arms across your chest.

“I know mi dulce, but he didn’t get the fucking hint.” Angel pushed off your door and walked over to you. “Why the fuck is Diego claiming you?” He knew what he was, but again he didn’t want to throw Coco under the bus. You walked away to the kitchen to get Angel a bag of frozen vegetables to put on his face.

You gnawed at your lip as you handed him the bag. You knew you could trust Angel, you just didn’t know what to say. He was definitely your best friend once upon a time, but he proved that wasn’t the case. “We went to high school together and became close during senior year. He wanted to prospect for the Mayans and was rejected so I convinced Will to sponsor him. He became a patched member and nothing really changed. I always thought he had feelings for me because he acted as if he was my boyfriend. I always reasoned that he was protecting me or that we didn’t need the labels.” You pursed your lips, your arms crossed once again, but it looked more to Angel that you were holding yourself together. “I, I felt foolish, especially when his girlfriend called me out. It was his birthday and I came to his apartment with cake and his gift. I got him this new riding sunglasses that he had been eyeing for months.” You smiled sadly, trying your best to keep your tears at bay. “She threw my cake to the ground and told me that they were together, she berated me about my obsession with him and how he didn’t feel the same. That he kept me around since I was connected to Mayans royalty.” You looked up at Angel, his heart broke as he saw just how much it hurt you. Even after all these years and he couldn’t blame you. “Five years, I waited on him hand and foot thinking we would be together at the end, but instead I was the dumbass. I couldn’t stay there, it was the reason my mom moved to Santo Padre. Sure, she wanted to be closer to Tio Bishop, but it was due to me.”

Angel watched as your shoulder shook, head towards the ground. How could he do that to you? Use you and throw you away like a piece of trash? His blood boiled just thinking about how heartbroken you must have been to have that happened. It made sense why you kept him at arm's length at the beginning. You were very nice and cordial, but whenever he would try to get to know you, you would just excuse yourself.

He walked over to you, lifting your face with his finger under your chin. “I would never do that to you. I get he hurt you and the mother fucker is going to pay. But you’re safe here with me. He’ll never be able to fool you again.” He wrapped his arms around you, letting you cry into his chest. Kissing the top of your head, he promised himself that he would do everything he could to make sure you never cried. The way his heart clenched as he just imagined you at Stockton, giving everything you had to a motherfucker who didn’t deserve it.

“I’m sorry,” you pulled away from Angel, wiping your eyes. “If you’re totally not interested in me anymore, I completely understand.” Who would want someone with baggage that involved one of his brothers? Though you were certain Angel never saw Diego in that way.

Angel rolled his eyes, cupping your face and forcing you to look at him. “Listen I’m fucking here to stay. I’m not Diego, and all you have to do is let me prove it to you. Querida, I like you, why won’t you let me take you out and show you a good time?” Angel wasn’t even sure when he’ll find the time with everything going on, but he’ll make time, for you he would.

“Okay.” You grinned.

=================

Medina pulled Diego to the side, shaking his head. “Haven’t you done enough damage?” He pushed Diego, smacking him upside the head. “We had a deal. I agreed to let you come if you stayed the fuck away from her.” Medina knew he should have never let Diego come. He was too persistent for him to not do anything.

“I have to get her back.” Diego spat out the blood in his mouth. “I know we had a deal, but when I saw her, I couldn’t help myself. I miss her.”

“I don’t give a fuck. You fucked up. Just because the pussy you gave her up for left you, doesn’t mean you should disrupt her life.” Medina has his hands on his hips, watching as Diego sat on the floor collecting his breath.

“I love her.”

“No you fucking don’t. You romanticized her because of her connection to Bishop and Padrino, but she’s more than that. She fucking did everything for you and what did you do? Break her fucking heart. You don’t love her, you just missed how she waited on you hand and foot.” Medina scoffed. “Stay the fuck away.” He warned. He never told Bishop or Padrino, but maybe it was time to do it now.

“I listened to you once and I’m not going to stay away. You can’t tell me how I feel about her. I know what I feel regardless of my past indiscretions.” Diego stood up then, spitting on the ground once more and dusting off his clothing.

“Angel would never let you near her.” Medina knew of Angel’s liking towards you due to Bishop. He kept him updated since Medina had been around you for years.

“He won’t always be with her, after all, I’m gonna be here for the next few months.” Diego smirked.

“What?” Medina was confused. What the fuck was he on?

“Santo Padre is down a man, they need someone to fill in, so I volunteered.”

“Diego, this is a bad fucking idea.”

“She was mine first and once I treat her like how she deserves to be treated, show her how much I love her, she’ll come back to me.”

Medina knew that wasn’t going to be the case.

Angel wouldn’t let that happen.

He had to make sure Angel wouldn’t let that happen.

#angelreyes #angel reyes fanfiction #angel reyes fic #angel reyes fanfic #mayans mc imagine #mayans mc fic #mayans mc fanfic #mayans fanfic #angel reyes imagine #angel reyes x you #angel reyes

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dercolaris · 3 years

Text

Calmness

"There is still space for another photo on this wall."

Hey guys. I will keep you busy during these crazy times and provide you another Scriddler story. This one was still on my list to translate, so, yep. Needed to be done. Right now I’m working on a new book idea and that’s consuming a bit of time, but maybe it will be worth it. Enjoy!

Thanks @shin-arei for helping me again with the translation <3

Song: https://youtu.be/ESu5YQTBilw

The small drops of water tapped almost regularly on the window, running in growing rivulets down the previously dirty glass onto the sodden ground. Jonathan's icy blue eyes stared into the all-engulfing darkness outside, looking for something in the oppressive blackness. The former psychiatrist himself didn't really know what it actually was in this moment. There was probably nothing hiding in the night. The edges of his mouth twitched a bit. This inner emptiness literally made him sick and every attempt to escape from it or to fill it meaningfully ended with the thoughts of this terrible state being forced upon him. It was almost impossible for him to simply enjoy such a moment of rest. The rogue sighed softly and leisurely turned his gaze from the window, let the opals roam briefly through the spacious living room. It was kept meticulously clean. Almost too perfectly organized. Everything in this room had its rightful place and if there was a new purchase it would find a safe place for eternity without any problems. People tended to praise the former psychiatrist for this fact, even to rave about being able to implement such a functioning system themselves. Nevertheless, the Master of Fear knew that this order was nothing more than a farce to escape the chaos in his own head. Who could have guessed what was really going on in their branched brain? Jonathan absently reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes, carefully sticking one of the coffin nails into his mouth. He didn't ignite it, just played a little with the poisonous stalk between his teeth, sliding it slowly from side to side with his tongue. A small smile crept onto his worn lips. Edward had hated it profoundly when his significant other had smoked and after some heated discussions the gaunt man had finally agreed to cancel this vice for good. However, this did not stop him from fooling his mind into thinking that he was going to remedy the situation soon with a cigarette. For the most part, addictions were simply a matter of the mind and - if the will was there - surprisingly easy to overcome. Routines, on the other hand, seemed more difficult to break through. Jonathan nibbled carefully on the filter and after a few seconds took the coffin nail out of his mouth again, sliding it back into the remaining box. He stowed it safely in the grey jacket and looked around at the door. There was no one to be seen. The brown-haired man chuckled cautiously and turned his eyes back to the steamed-up window.

The tinkerer would most likely jump at his throat at this now rare sight or at least make a derogatory comment that he should finally banish the cursed stalks from his collection. Despite the often sarcastic remarks, the former psychiatrist knew that the Riddler was only concerned about him and wanted the best for his partner. Even if the inventor would probably never admit these good intentions or talk them down. After a while, the Master of Fear casually looked down at his socks, and was startled to see some new holes in the worn fabric. He reached down with his thin arms and pulled his stockings off his feet, then sauntered almost silently to the red sofa in the middle of the room. The gaunt man took a seat on the left, looked a while for suitable utensils from the ornate sewing box on the massive side table. He was probably not as skilled with needles and threads as Jervis Tetch, but his poorly trained talent should be enough for darning some socks. The thin man carefully got to work. As the first hole closed gradually on the fabric, another notch opened in his soul. No matter how hard the elder tried to ignore it, a nagging feeling lingered in his heart. Something in him was unfulfilled. Jonathan paused at work, staring at his own bony fingers. For more than three months he had been living with the inventor in a well-preserved old apartment in one of the countless suburbs of Gotham. They had mutually agreed to stay out of major difficulties for a while and to figure out if a relationship could work out for them. Moving in together was therefore the ultimate test to be able to speak of a solid, maybe even stable partnership. The former psychiatrist barely noticeably shook his head and began sewing again. It was still incredibly difficult for the brown-haired man to adjust to the unknown situation. He had never known someone by his side in his life and suddenly being able to trust Edward was just too absurd. Who would seriously care about him and voluntarily adjust his entire life to his habit, just so as not to disturb him too much in the usual processes of living?

This made the Master of Fear doubt whether the Riddler was really being sincere with him. Was it possible that the other was just playing a deceptive game with him and would leave him when he had enough of it? The former psychiatrist closed his eyes for a moment, listening into his slowly beating heart. Mind and feelings were of course more than disagreed, often fighting bitterly for the upper hand, but the steady rhythm of his body centre spoke an unmistakable language. He knew from unfathomable, almost mystical sources about the honesty of the inventor. The lean man half opened his tired eyelids, put sewing kit and socks on the side table. In addition to all the small gestures of affection Edward showed him at home, he didn't seem ashamed to be seen with Jonathan in public. They weren't necessarily interested in showing their love to the whole world or even shouting it out openly, but the Riddler often enough broke the invisible barrier between them, which was actually meant to keep the appearance of a normal friendship. Jonathan still didn't know how the underground would react to their relationship. Strangely enough, this actually frightened him. Why, however, was a mystery to him. It was basically nobody's business with whom he shared the bed at night and how he imagined his own future. Yet there was this voice in his head preaching to him repeatedly to keep everything under wraps. It was the same voice that was responsible for convincing him that he was not worth the time of the tinkerer and that one day he would pack his bags and leave without a word. The brown-haired man sagged a little, pulled his legs up leisurely. Loneliness. How many times had he wasted thought that he would spend his whole life alone. That no one would ever be ready to take him and, like Edward, just hugs him at night. The Master of Fear put his chin on his knees. There were certain points of contention in their relationship, but these too were easily resolved. In general, the time together with the black-haired man was surprisingly harmonious and the former psychiatrist no longer wanted to do without his presence. He stared at the crackling fire in the ancient fireplace, watching the flames leap wildly on all sides. Jonathan stroked his thinning hair and groaned slightly. The last few years had practically passed him by like trains.

The hatred of all his tormentors had crept insidiously to an immensely high level and every new interaction with Batman had crowned this feeling. What remained was the realization that in his eternal anger he had lost sight of a crucial goal. His own happiness. Had it really gotten to the point where someone had to remind him that he only had one life and that he should have fun in it from time to time? Joy had been a foreign word to the older man for ages. There was just work and more work. That Edward of all people was the one who had spoken to his conscience to see things a little more calmly was pure irony. The Riddler himself was an unteachable workaholic and if you don't remind him to take a break from time to time, he works to the proverbial collapse. The former psychiatrist smiled a little wider. He had sent his partner to bed over two hours ago this evening. With a loud protest from the stubborn inventor, of course. Nevertheless, the black-haired man finally made his way into the bedroom and fell asleep on the soft mattress after a few minutes. A clear sign that he had been overtired and urgently needed a break. Jonathan blinked a little, then released the convulsive grip on his knees. He got up from the sofa and walked calmly into the hallway, looking down the dark corridor. His eyes locked on the dry wall. It was full with photographs that they had taken together over the years of their rather dubious friendship. Among them was their first meeting in the infamous Iceberg Lounge, which Harleen had kindly immortalized for them and an ancient photo from the Gotham Gazette of their first joint arrest as a criminal duo. The brown-haired smiled almost happily while looking at this really unique snapshot. Edward had a more than visible injury under his eye in the sepia-coloured picture and even the Master of Fear had not got away without some wounds. The gaunt man let his gaze wander further. They had attached the photos in chronological order. It finally culminated with the photo of the fateful birthday party of Victor Fries, at which Jonathan had admittedly decided somewhat unintentionally to want to walk the future together with the inventor. That evening he had clearly looked way too deeply into the glass and confessed, under high linguistic difficulties of course, his love to Edward. Fortunately, they had been alone in the winter garden at this intimate moment, which led the tinkerer to give him a meaningful kiss in response. The clumsy confession was followed by the first night in the same bed.

Looked at it soberly, this evening was just the happy end of a protracted development. It wasn't a particularly big surprise that their paths not only crossed accidentally in Gotham, but actually ended up in walking the way together. The brown-haired man in particular had been able to successfully overcome his fear of contact over the years and did not regret for a second that he had told the Riddler the truth about his feelings. Jonathan took a deep breath. He hoped that there would be many more photographs of them to follow on the wall. Without looking further at the pictures, the gaunt man crept in the direction of the bedroom, peeking leisurely into it. Edward was lying on his back, his left forearm resting on his forehead as is so often the case. The blanket hung more badly than right over his hip, only covering the lower abdomen of the black-haired man. The inventor had the unconscious habit of tossing the warming material somewhere in his sleep and waking up shivering in the morning because his body was slowly cooling down. The former psychiatrist walked quietly towards the bed, then finally sat on the edge. His eyes studied his lover carefully, noticing every little change in his relaxed face. After a few minutes the gaunt man looked up and gave a slight shudder. There was still so much to do, so much work which was piling up without any mercy. A break was out of the question. Jonathan was about to get up when the hand of the tinkerer grabbed his gently. The brown-haired man raised an eyebrow. His partner was asleep, but seemed to instinctively seek his presence somehow. The Master of Fear turned his hand carefully and interlaced their fingers, looking lovingly at the younger man. As if in slow motion, he sank down on the mattress and fished with his free fingers for the completely twisted bedspread at the foot end. He gradually pulled the fabric over them and moved closer to the tinkerer. The Riddler turned abruptly to the side, wrapping his left arm around the former psychiatrist's narrow body with light pressure. The older man paused for a moment, but then returned the hug tenderly and laid his head on the comfortable pillow next to Edward. He began to carefully caress the neck of the often over-the-top tinkerer, studying the gentle contours of his beautiful face. The inventor groaned almost in relief and snuggled closer to the gaunt man, then surprisingly buried his face in the crook of the other's neck. The warm, even breath brushed the cool skin. Jonathan smiled warmly and ran two fingers up the slightly curved spine of his lover. He finally placed a loving kiss on the back of the head and whispered hoarsely: "Sleep well, my prince."

#DC #Batman #Arkham Verse #Jonathan Crane #Edward Nygma #Scarecrow #Riddler #Riddlecrow #Scriddler

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dwellordream · 3 years

Text

“…For example, although it is true that death did take a dramatic toll on medieval children, families were, from the beginning of the medieval era, smaller than we had once thought. Furthermore, any thorough investigation of medieval records shows that parental love and the desire to care for children were commonplace, which disproves the preconceived idea that repeated grief estranged parents emotionally from their children.

…Engaging with medieval demography is a difficult endeavour as very few sources provide any substantial information on the rates of birth and death among humble families. Among the only archival documents that yield relatively accurate demographic data are the fourteenth- and fifteenth-century fiscal sources of Prato, Florence and other Tuscan cities, analysed in detail by David Herlihy and Christiane Klapisch-Zuber in the 1980s in their famous study Tuscans and their Families.

…In the rest of Western Europe, historians have to work with much less detailed tax records, which, when they were in fact drafted, often omitted to list young children. Other sources used by historians interested in demographic history are notarial documents, such as wills. However, it is important to note that these sources only mentioned the surviving offspring of the testator at a fixed point in time, thus only providing a snapshot of these families’ cycle of development.

Another issue with medieval demography is methodological. Dubbed “the meaningless mean,” it is widely held that averages and means can be devoid of significance if not interpreted wisely. If, in a sample of one hundred individuals, 50 of them had only one child, but that the other 50 each had six children, the average number of children per individual would be 3.5 – which none of them actually had. Nuances and careful examinations of data sets are thus essential in demography to better understand population patterns.

…Two factors have a determining impact on the size of families: fertility rates and child mortality rates. Estimates of infant and child mortality are often elusive in the Middle Ages. When they are available, they range from 30% to 50% of births, depending on the context and the socio-economic circumstances of families. Fertility patterns are even more difficult to ascertain. What is clear, however, is that both rates varied depending on a number of factors. Of these, wealth was the most important since it directly impacted the ability of individuals to properly feed their children and to have access to health practitioners. This, in turn, largely determined their fertility and life expectancy.

Wealth indeed played a role in female fertility patterns. Malnutrition and physical frailty are detrimental to women’s fertility and to their chances of having healthy pregnancies. Malnutrition for instance causes amenorrhea (an interruption in the menstrual and ovulatory cycle) and augments risks of miscarriages. The impact of wealth differences on fertility was in evidence in late medieval Tuscany, where wealthy women were more often pregnant and were fertile for a longer period of time than women of humbler means.

The richer the people then, the larger their families tended to be. In rural England, between the twelfth century and the Black Death, the average number of children who survived infancy in poor families was slightly below two. This average improved to over two surviving children in landowning peasant families, and climbed to as high as five among the wealthiest noble households. The situation was similar in the southern French diocese of Maguelone in the late Middle Ages, where peasant families had on average two living children at the time they made their wills, while wealthy families counted an average of three.

Even if medieval authors often stressed how the plague affected everyone equally, be it the young or the old, the poor or the wealthy, archaeological evidence points to the contrary. Like the COVID-19 pandemic, the plague took a larger toll on underprivileged individuals. Bioarchaeological evidence shows that malnutrition, prior infections and traumas – more common among poor families – increased risks of mortality during epidemics and famines. The poor had a shorter life expectancy than the wealthy and victims of plagues were predominantly from non-elite families. In sum, poor peasants lost far more children to the plague than wealthy merchants or aristocrats.

The Black Death may have killed the young and the old alike. But the plagues that followed the initial outbreak of 1348 took a larger toll on the young. In Sienna, Italy, children age 12 and under made up 88% of the victims buried during the 1383 plague epidemic. At the opening of the fifteenth century, underage skeletons made up almost two-thirds of the Sienese burials. In London, England, the average number of children per family dropped in the decades following the Black Death. During the plague of 1361-62, sometimes nicknamed the “plague of children,” two-thirds of the testators of the rural town of Manosque, southern France, were childless.

…Rural dwellers, even if impoverished, may have had a better chance of seeing their children reach adulthood than urban dwellers. Medieval English townspeople for one had a shorter life expectancy than villagers. Overpopulation, pollution and poor general health in cities contributed to creating an “urban pathogen load” that enhanced rates of child mortality and tended to hamper women’s fertility. This is not to say that life in rural settings was devoid of risks, but chances of survival were statistically better in the countryside.

For instance, fifteenth-century Tuscan women from the crowded city of Florence saw their fertility dwindle once they had reached their mid-twenties. Meanwhile, rural women had most of their children during their twenties and thirties. As a result, rural women had a wider window of fertility and were able to mother children in greater numbers than urban women.

Another example comes from the city of Montpellier, in southern France. There, urban peasant families of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries counted on average one surviving child — a very low number — while rural peasant families of the diocese had twice as many. This rural/urban divide is even visible in the sizes of wealthy families. The Montpellier elite had an average of two live children in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, while rural elite households had three. Wealth and place of residence thus played a central role in fertility and mortality patterns.

Family size increased during the demographic expansion of the high Middle Ages. It then stabilized in the first half of the fourteenth century before dwindling dramatically with the onset of the Black Death. Families remained small, often decimated by disease, into the first decades of the fifteenth century. They began to grow again once as the threshold for population renewal was reached by circa 1450.”

- Lucie Lamounier, “How Large were Medieval Peasant Families?”

#history #medieval #late middle ages #children #lucie laumonier

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mysterioh · 4 years

Text

The Ignorant Beauty & The Beast of New York - Ch. 19

PAIRING: MOB!STEVE ROGERS X READER

SYNOPSIS: You love biology. The study of life excites you. But you hate people. Especially the ones that like to stick their nose in your business. Too bad the King of Brooklyn didn’t get the memo.

MASTERLIST

What Comes Around Goes Around

Peggy’s fingers curled around the porcelain teacup, delicately crafted with intricate designs, and brought it to her lips. The cool breeze of a vanishing winter sweeps through her curled auburn locks and fires goosebumps along the bare skin of her arms. Despite the cool temperature of a London morning, the sun shines freely above her, casting its rays upon her as she sits on the balcony of her penthouse.

She takes a sip of her tea then places it back on the table beside her, eyes glued to the novel in her hand. She turns the page and her head follows. A knock comes against the glass of the balcony door making her curls bounce as she turns to see who it is.

Dottie gives her a smile, prim and proper. Peggy replies with a roll of the eyes and returns to her book.

Dottie only came when she had a job to give.

“Please tell me you didn’t break my door down this time,” Peggy sighs.

“I have a key, remember?” Dottie chuckles. She takes a seat across from her unasked.

“You mean the one you stole from me?” Peggy mused.

“No, the one you gave me,” Dottie retorts tiredly, discouraging Peggy from furthering her teasing.

Peggy huffs, but doesn’t say another word. Dottie digs her hand into her bag and pulls out her phone.

"I've found something I think you would be interested in,” she smirks, unlocking and scrolling through news.

Peggy raises a brow at Dottie. She hands her the phone and Peggy’s lips curve up almost instantly.

"I haven't seen this pretty face in a while,” she chuckles.

Her eyes scan the picture. Angular cheekbones. Bright blue eyes. Golden hair. A sharp jawline. A body chiseled by the gods.

Cameras couldn’t capture his essence.

Her eyes flit towards the girl wrapped in his arms. "And who's this?"

She reads the headline.

A whore.

"Apparently, the headlines are an exaggeration,” Dottie informs, “She's his girlfriend."

Peggy looks up at her incredulously. "His girlfriend?" she repeats with disbelief.

"Jealous?" Dottie asks with a wicked grin, propping her chin up in her hand.

Peggy scoffs, her eyes returning to the girl. She takes another sip of her tea.

The taste had turned bitter.

"What is there to be jealous about?"

Dottie shrugs. "Appearance wise she's rather plain,” she says flatly, "I was just alluding to the fact that Steve Rogers has moved on from you. You're no longer the apple of his eye.”

She speaks with emphasis to each word, slowly as if trying to rub it in her face.

"I don't need a man to know my worth,” Peggy retorts sternly, eyes burning at Dottie.

"But Rogers is one that you particularly enjoyed,” Dottie replies boldly, only because she knows she’s right.

Peggy’s lips waver and her gaze falls from Dottie and back onto the screen. "He was different from the others,” she murmurs softly.

Dottie smiles triumphantly. She sits back in her seat and clasps her hands together. “The real reason I’m here is to give you a job.”

“I had a good feeling,” she sighs, “can’t you ever come over for some tea instead?”

“You never invite me.”

“You have a key.”

“The boss needs your help,” Dottie states. “He needs you in New York.”

Peggy smiles at her and then at the phone in her hand, eyes lingering at the snapshot of a sweet kiss between young lovers.

“How convenient.”

“For the billionth time, Steve, I’m going to be fine,” you groaned.

“Are you sure?” he asks again and you’re ready to snap his neck. “Why not take the day off?”

“I’ve taken two days off!” you exclaimed, “I have bills to pay!”

Steve huffs and falls back into the driver's seat of the car. He crosses his arms like a pouty child.

You turn in your seat so you’re facing him. “Have some faith in me?” you asked, “I mean what’s the worst that could happen?”

Steve’s head turns to you with a knowing look making you turn away from him.

There’s a lot that can happen now that the entirety of New York knew who you were. Every step you took, every move you made had to be taken with precaution. There’s no telling of what could be behind you or in front, of where your life was going to go from here on out.

The future has always been uncertain, but now, it was ominous. You weren’t afraid per se. It was bound to happen someday. You just weren’t ready for it. And you had a feeling you could say that for the both of you.

“Maybe you should just move in with me,” Steve says.

“What?” you whip your head towards him, red tinting your cheeks.

He shrugs, a little blush covering his own. “Then you wouldn’t have to work. You’d just have to worry about school and that’s it.”

You smile and chuckle a little. “That’s really thoughtful of you, but I’m fine, really,” you reply, taking his free hand in yours. “Things are going to be different now, but I don’t want that to change the norm. I’d rather think of it as more of a minor inconvenience.”

Steve chuckles and shakes his head. “You really are something else. Most people would start freaking out.”

You smirk pompously. “I guess I’m not like most people.”

He brings your hand to his lips. “No, I guess you aren’t.”

Leaning over, you give him a kiss but part too quickly for his liking. He frowns as you pick up your bag.

“I should go,” you open the door.

He tugs you by the hand. “Listen, if anything happens you call me and if I don’t pick up call—”

“Call Bucky,” you recite with a sigh. “And if he won’t pick up. Call Sam. Or Nat. Or Peter,” you list on your fingers. “Honestly, I’ll be dead by then.”

“Y/N,” he says sternly.

“It’s a joke,” you retort. “Ever heard of one?”

“It’s not a good one.”

You give him a peck on the lips and take a step out. He pulls you back in. “Y/N.”

“What is it now?” you ask, exasperated.

Steve grins. He’s been doting on you all day so he understands your frustration. But he can’t help himself. He’s just worried that something might happen.

His blue eyes drink you in, take in every part of your features. Relaxed brows, tired eyes, sweet lips that he was aching to meet again.

You warm him like the sun. Make him light enough to float off into space. He believes that all those years he’s spent without you had gone to waste. All those days you could’ve brightened his day with a smile. All those nights he could have held you in his arms.

“Well?”

“I—” Steve starts, but hesitates. Three words rested on his tongue, itching for a release. The time wasn’t right. “Have a good day.”

"You too." You slip out of the car as quickly as you can so he couldn't pull you back.

Steve doesn't move an inch. His head rests against the wheel, watching the way your ponytail bounces with each step.

You give him one last wave before entering the restaurant, then motion him to leave.

"Y/N!" May chirps from the register. "You're alive!"

"Did you want me dead?"

"Of course not!" she laughs. “How are you now? I saw the news. It’s just horrible,” she shakes her head.

"It was when it came out, but it'll pass," you shrug. "Sometimes I feel like it already has. It’s been really quiet ever since.”

May chuckles, "I’m guessing Steve did his job and scared them off."

"Maybe," you chuckle, walking past her towards the kitchen to clock in.

“Oh yeah,” May sighs. "Wanda's been out for the past two days. Her brother got into a horrible accident and she's been with him since. It's been really hard on her."

"Oh," you whisper, feeling sympathy for her.

“Staff is tight today so get to work!” she orders playfully.

You stand tall and give her a salute. “Aye, aye, Captain.”

Wanda’s strides grow wider as she draws nearer to the restaurant. Fires of fury smoldered in her brown eyes. Her face was red with suppressed rage, and when Vision called from behind, her head whipped towards him. ready to attack.

She ignores his pleas and pulls the door to Urban Remedy violently as if to break it off its hinges. May’s head turns around at the sound.

“Wanda?” she asked, confused. “What are you doing here?”

Wanda ignores her question and looks around for you. She makes her way into the kitchen to find you picking up orders.

When you see her you give her a small apologetic smile and it only pisses her off.

“Who the hell do you think you are?” she hisses. Her voice echoes through the kitchen, making every living thing pause for a moment.

“What?” Your brows knit together in confusion.

She grabs you by the shirt with both hands. “What did my brother do to you?” she shouts, shaking you violently. “You ruined his life!”

You push her off. “I have no idea what you’re talking about!”

“Your fucking boyfriend!” she spat with a pointed finger. Her words spark a fire that courses through your veins. “He hurt my brother.” Wanda’s eyes gloss over but her anger remains evident in her brows. “He broke him and left him to die,” she says, voice cracking a little with every word. “I couldn’t even recognize him when I found him.”

The fire in you runs cold. Your tightened jaw goes slack leaving your mouth parted slightly in shock. Your mind goes blank.

Wanda breaks into tears and it breaks your heart. Vision places his hands on her shoulders from behind.

It doesn’t make any sense to you. You didn’t know what to say or how to explain.

What the hell were you going to explain if you didn’t even know what had happened?

You come to place your hand on her arm. “Wanda I—”

She flinches at your touch, eyes blazing red. “Don’t touch me,” she jeers.

Your hand falls to your side and you look away in shame. Your thoughts run wild. Trying to tie the situation together and not make you fall apart at the same time.

Why would Steve hurt him?

Then it comes like a lightbulb.

"Nowhere, just unfinished business."

"I’m guessing Steve did his job and scared them away."

Your jaw tightens and fist clenches. You look over to Wanda crying in her boyfriend's arms.

"Tell me what he did," you spoke.

"What?" She asks.

"What did Steve do to your brother?"

The door to Steve’s office opens with a loud slam. You stomp inside with a scowl on your face.

He furrows his brows at you, standing in front of his desk with a few papers in hand. "Y/N? You're here?"

You slam your bag onto his desk and he winces at the sound. "Why did you do it?"

"What are you talking about?" He shakes his head in confusion.

"You know exactly what I'm talking about!" you shout at him. "Why did you do it?"

He places his hand on his hip and shakes the papers in his other. "Y/N, I don't know what you're talking about,” he repeats. “Is everything alright?”

"Why the hell did you take his eye?!" you blurt out.

Steve stands back. His lips tilt down as if irritated. "How do you know that?"

You scoff. "What? You thought I wouldn't find out?"

He throws his papers onto his desk. "It's something you didn't need to worry about.”

"It's about me!” you pointed to yourself with both hands. “If anyone is supposed to be worried it's supposed to be me!" your voice begins to rise. "He's Wanda's brother!" And Wanda's my friend!”

"I don't care whose brother he is. What he did was wrong!" he says, voice beginning to rise as well. "I can't believe you're defending the guy that wrote all that bullshit about you. I was defending you."

You pinch the bridge of your nose in frustration. "I'm not saying what he did was right. It's the fact that you decided to take it into your own hands that I’m against."

Steve clicks his tongue. "He deserved what he got,” he spat.

The anger residing in your veins begins to boil. "And who made you the judge? You're not the one that's supposed to make that decision!" you shouted at him.

“I’m the kingpin!” he yelled. “I run things around here. Anyone who goes against me will suffer the consequences!”

You stand back, but don’t back down. "So it wasn't really about me,” you chuckled sadly. "It was about you and your overinflated ego!" you spat.

"I never said that!" he argues with arms spread at his sides.

"You just did!” you retorted. “It's all about how people see you. You don’t wanna ruin the perfect image you have for yourself,” you jeer. "You’re not the king of the world. You're just a filthy mobster!"

Steve’s jaw ticks at your words. Even under his stone cold expression, your words manage to hurt him. Maybe if it was someone else he wouldn’t have cared, but hearing those words from you hurt more than it should’ve. It feels all too familiar. A lot like memories he’s buried six feet under.

“If that’s what you think then why the hell are you still here?" he states, cold enough that it has shivers running down your spine. "Maybe you should just leave!"

Your fuse simmered with his words.

You never said you wanted to leave.

Your hands balled into fists and your nostrils flared. "Maybe I should!" you barked. You yanked your bag off his desk making the papers fly off as you rushed out the door.

Steve swallows deeply as he sees you leave. He wants to run after you but his feet feel like they’re cemented to the ground. Steve swipes a hand through his hair and lets out a deep, exhausted sigh.

A knock comes at the door and he turns to see Bucky standing in the doorframe. Half hidden as if he was afraid.

"Uh, is everything okay?" he asks warily.

Steve’s shoulders drop and a frown forms on his face. "No, no it's not,” he shakes his head.

"I've made a really big mistake."

TAGLIST (CLOSED): @ashwarren32 @rootcrop @chuckennuggets1213 @savedbystark @little-dark-empress @great-goddess-of-sin @boxofteenageideas @imsonick @achishisha @calwitch @captainchrisstan @thirstybunz @littlebees-things @voltage-my2dlove @booktease21 @rinkashirikitateku @harleyscheekheart @allegra-writes @iced-capsicle @eliza5616 @bookgirlunicorn @fckdeusername @illbethethundertoyourlightning @kaetastic @mccrps @undiadeestos @hailmary-yramliah @andiebell2023

#steve rogers x reader #steve rogers x you #steve rogers x y/n #mob!steve rogers x reader #mob!steve rogers x you #steve rogers imagine #steve rogers fluff #mafia steve rogers x reader #mafia au

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mythicamagic · 4 years

Text

Sesskag week Day 4: Comedy

Summary: Kagome resolves to snap a photo of the infamous Killing Perfection, which proves more difficult than expected. Oneshot.

AN: For Sesskag Week Day 4 - Comedy.

Rated T

2,900 words

(all prompts posted on Ao3, fanfic.net and Dokuga)

Camera Shy

To the surprise of pretty much all who knew her, Kagome pursued art and photography in those three years away from the feudal era. In fact, even after the well re-opened, she continued to take classes, often creating life-like drawings from whatever photos she'd taken.

After joining everyone on a warm spring day for a picnic, Shippo had innocently inquired;

"What's that, Kagome?" pointing at a square black box hanging around her neck.

Grinning, she tapped it with pride.

"This is my instant polaroid camera. Very vintage, very hipster- some might say," she giggled, noting everyone's puzzled looks. Raising it, she took a snap of the fox demon, who yelped and ducked behind Sango's leg.

Crouching down, Kagome held out the photo once it had slid from the camera, shaking it gently and showing him the blank space that slowly filled with his image.

"Fascinating," Miroku hummed, while Sango nodded in awe. Inuyasha merely snorted, unimpressed since he'd been exposed to so much future tech already.

Kaede gasped, staring at the picture with mild concern.

"You have imprisoned him."

"What? No-" Kagome smiled and shook her head. "It's just a photo. Kind of like a painting. I feel bad that I never took any before but I was always so busy with Naraku or studying for tests."

Taking the photo gingerly, Shippo grinned at himself. He then beamed brighter and tugged on Kagome's sleeve. "Let's go show Rin!"

---

After taking various photos that would make a historian lose their mind, Kagome sat back within Kaede's hut and sketched some snapshots. She quietly giggled at the candid pictures; Inuyasha caught mid-yawn, exposing his thick fangs. Miroku studying a scroll while holding his youngest son, who drooled all over his robes, Kirara playing with a ball of yarn, Sango teaching her daughter a style of kickboxing, or Shippo trying to cram an entire sandwich in his mouth at once.

While looking through them, however, one particular figure seemed to be missing among her collection.

Approaching the stoic demon lord with perhaps a little too much familiarity and enthusiasm, Kagome smiled at him as he peacefully reclined against a tree.

"Sesshoumaru," she raised her camera slightly from where it hung around her neck. "I don't know if you've noticed on your visits but lately I've been taking-"

"Photos. Rin showed me some."

Kagome stopped and hummed. He caught on fast. And judging by how warily he eyed her camera, the answer to her question simmering right on the edge of her tongue would be a big fat no.

"Right! Sooo I've taken photos of just about everyone now," dragging her sneaker back and forth over the dirt, a hopeful smile graced her mouth. "All except you."

"No."

Ah, no use in sugar-coating it, huh?

Kagome rose a brow and folded her arms. "May I ask why?"

Giving a sigh that bespoke of his annoyance with having to explain himself, Sesshoumaru idly studied sharp nails. "I do not believe you have earned it."

Out of all the things she'd expected him to say, that wasn't on the extensive list. "I haven't earned a picture of you?"

"Hn."

Smiling slightly, she sized him up. "And what do I need to do in order to get a snap of the illustrious Lord Sesshoumaru?"

Golden eyes slanted up at her and crinkled at the edges in slight amusement. Kagome's insides went all warm for some reason, cheeks reddening. "You needn't do anything grand. This one is merely discontent with letting you capture a picture of me so easily. I will not forbid you from trying, however."

Kagome tried to follow his line of logic, experimentally shifting- before grabbing her camera and rapidly pressing the button.

Sesshoumaru blurred away from his spot.

Jolting, the miko whipped her head around, grasping her photo and watching as it cleared to reveal a plain tree. No Daiyoukai in sight.

A piquant scent filled her next inhale. Kagome's skin pricked, hot breath dancing over the nape of her neck.

"Do you understand now, miko?" he rumbled.

"Y-yeah," glancing at him over her shoulder, she tried in vain to ignore the heat in her cheeks and pleasant twinge in her lower stomach. "Sure, I'll play your game- and win too."

Confidence clung to Sesshoumaru like a second skin as he tilted his chin up, the ghost of a smile curling his mouth. "Hn."

---

The next time Lord Sesshoumaru deigned to grace the village with his presence, Kagome was ready. Having memorised his visiting schedule with Rin long before, she lay in wait within the trees.

Grinning sharply, she let out an evil laugh reminiscent of Naraku's 'kukukuku.'

Straddling a tree branch and hearing Shippo's signal (a whistle from further away in the trees) Kagome tightened both legs around her perch and held the camera, holding still. It had only taken a few lollipops to persuade the kitsune to help.

Heart thundering and eagle-eyed, Kagome waited with bated breath for any sign of the Daiyoukai wandering below en-route to the village.

Upon glimpsing the tell-tale red and white silks and silver hair, Kagome swung herself down. Gripping the branch hard with her legs, dark hair flew up, leaves being knocked free and cascading around her as she appeared before him, hanging upside down.

With a smirk, she struck her finger onto the button- just as Sesshoumaru blurred through the air, palm closing over the lens.

Kagome squeaked, mouth falling open. Her gaze slid from camera to Daiyoukai, who gazed at her, face quite close to hers. Thin lips then curved down, but from her flipped perspective, she realised the jerk was smirking at her.

Kagome's legs then lost their grip. Yelping, the miko dropped like a sack of potatoes, landing hard at his feet in a sprawl of limbs. Letting out a long groan, Kagome patted around, hands empty. Something light was then placed onto the crown of her head. Reaching up, she felt the camera and frowned just as Sesshoumaru smoothly stepped over her body and sauntered away, continuing on without a care in the world.

Growling, Kagome sat up, rubbing her throbbing skull.

Shippo burst from the trees and landed beside her. "Ahh that was a colossal failure! You okay Kagom-"

A giggle slid out from the miko, shoulders shaking. Shippo's tail puffed up, observing her wide smile with slight unease.

"Heh, he's pretty good," she flashed a sharp grin, cheeks glowing. "This is fun. Who knew such a stuffy guy could be playful."

Shippo tilted his head to the side, not exactly understanding but smiling anyway. "Let's go with plan B!" he encouraged.

Kagome nodded with determination.

---

Typically during the afternoon portion of his visit, Sesshoumaru would leave Rin to her duties and go recline against a tree situated near a small lake, sometimes reading. Following this ritual, the Daiyoukai now sat at the base of a tree and drew up one knee. Drinking in the quiet serenity of the picturesque scenery, Sesshoumaru leaned his head back and looked out at the glittering water-

-only to notice a reed moving.

Raising a brow, he blinked. Relaxed muscles then stiffened, and he reacted seconds before Kagome lunged up from within the water, a waterproof camera in hand and reed clutched between her teeth as a breathing tube.

Yanking her camera up, Kagome's victorious expression changed the second she registered red youki cloaking his form, curling around it like a thick mist.

By the time his energy dissipated, a giant silver furred inuyoukai towered above her.

Blue eyes widened, which only caused the smirk to grow wider on his feral jaws. Sesshoumaru slammed a paw down into the water.

Yelping, Kagome was soon consumed in a mini tidal wave.

By the time she'd surfaced, coughing and minding slick hair away from her face, the dog demon had trotted away, tail swishing behind him with an arrogant flair. Kagome glared and trudged to shore, leaving soggy footsteps on the sand.

"Uh...Plan C?" Shippo chanced weakly, hopping out of some bushes.

Kagome nodded, sputtering some lake water from her mouth. "Plan C."

---

The way she figured, Sesshoumaru was one of the fastest beings alive. Yet with every attempt to take his photo, he'd not turned tail and ran once, instead meeting her head-on.

This led her to believe that if she could distract him with enough things, he'd stay rooted to the spot out of sheer bullheaded pride but be too overwhelmed to react as she took a photo.

With all this in mind, Kagome adjusted the bow and quiver of arrows over her shoulder before gripping a saddle and unsteadily climbing onto the back of a horse.

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Shippo said, tail twitching worriedly as he gazed up at the tall steed.

"Kaede said she didn't mind me borrowing her horse, I don't see the problem," Kagome wobbled and clutched at the reins.

"But you don't even know how to ride a horse!"

"I know the basics," she huffed, clicking her tongue and urging the horse into a walk. "See? Easy. Now, let's just do this as we practised and it'll run smoothly," touching the camera hanging around her neck, she grinned.

The fox demon hurried alongside the horse to keep up with her. "When we practised you weren't on a horse," he mumbled worriedly. "Can we go through it again, just to check?"

"Oh alright, worry-wort," Kagome smiled. "Sesshoumaru is going to come from that direction," she pointed further along the dirt road. "You'll burst out of the forest and turn into a smoke bomb to disorientate him. I'm going to come galloping by and release one of these," Kagome touched the fletching of an arrow. "Which has been modified to be soft pointed and filled with a strong perfume that'll release on contact. This'll temporarily daze him further while the smoke clears- and when that happens, I'll loop around him and snap my picture."

Shippo continued on all-fours, frowning to himself. "I'm still not too confident in my smoke bomb illusion though."

"I know you can do it," she smiled. "Don't sell yourself short."

"But maybe something else would work better, like this-" he hopped up and burst into his floating pink ball form with a loud 'pop!'

The horse suddenly reared, making a whinny of distress, eyes wide with fright. Kagome gasped, clinging to it's back and yelping as it bolted.

Shippo gaped and popped back into his regular form, watching her image draw further away at a breakneck speed. "Kagome!"

Squeezing her eyes shut and feeling the horse gallop with powerful strides that threatened to knock her off, all she could do was cling to its neck. The reins flailed in the air- and if she could just grab them and pull the beast to halt, maybe he would stop. Kagome whimpered, body jolting from the movement. Cracking open fearful blue eyes and trying to reach for them- she felt her thigh slip slightly. Quickly abandoning that idea, she clung like a madwoman, tears stinging her lashes from the breeze racing by.

I screwed up! This was a terrible idea!

Looking ahead of them with mild disorientation caused her breath to hitch the second she caught sight of a pale figure. She stiffened.

Sesshoumaru stood on the road. They were headed right for him!

"Sesshoumaru!" she cried, trying to get across to move aside.

The Daiyoukai observed them with a frosty expression, slowly raising his claws.

Noticing the toxins colouring them green, her eyes widened. "Don't hurt him!" she burst. The fault lay with her, not the horse.

Sesshoumaru's eyes flickered with mild frustration. He then leapt up in the air to avoid a collision, floating above their heads. The sight of him became blurry because of tear-filled eyes, and Kagome ducked her head into the horse's mane.

Speeding before them again and landing, Sesshoumaru then drew his sword. Lifting it- he then slammed the blade into the earth. Bakusaiga emitted a large burst of green youki, skittering over the ground in a wide arch that flashed like minty lightning.

The horse skidded to a stop, kicking up dirt and neighing, rearing back on hind legs. Kagome gasped, unprepared for the movement- but clinging hard.

Slamming both hooves down and whickering, the horse panted wildly, finally still. Feeling hands slide under her numb thighs and wrap around her torso, Kagome stiffly unfolded from the saddle, placing her hands on broad shoulders as she was lifted down.

Kagome buried her face in the demon's neck, shuddering violently. She muffled sobs into his flesh, gripping his exquisite silks so tight her knuckles bled white.

Sesshoumaru held her without a word, nose dipping into windswept dark hair.

When Shippo finally caught up, having pursed on all fours, he jumped up into her arms and wailed louder than she, crying and nuzzling the frazzled miko.

Calming and smiling tiredly, she petted his soft red hair, looking up at Sesshoumaru. He gazed back, face closer than expected. He then shifted mokomoko beneath her legs to support her weight, picking up the reins of the horse and leaving the road.

"Are you angry with me?" she muttered, feeling the tension in his frame.

"Answer me this; can you ride horses?"

"N-no..."

"Then you were foolish," Sesshoumaru bit out. "But one cannot completely predict horses. I do not care for them," he threw a glare over his shoulder at the steed dutifully following them. He then released a hard exhale through his nose, levelling a frown at her. "Never do something so ridiculous again for a game, miko. My picture is not worth injury...or worse."

Kagome rested her cheek against his furs, looking up at him and feeling a twinge in her chest. His worry felt better than any blanket and hot cocoa could right then.

Noticing what direction he headed in, Kagome touched a striped cheek. "L-let's not head to the village just yet. I'd rather...calm down in the forest somewhere."

Sesshoumaru rose a brow but nodded, feet shifting and changing direction, walking beneath the shadows of the trees.

---

She felt glad of the quiet, the calm serenity surrounding their afternoon after all the chaos earlier. The horse grazed within a clearing near the lake, seeming to comfort eat. Shippo had fallen asleep, curled into a ball at her side. Kagome quietly sketched with a notebook and pencil in hand, sitting against a tree. Opposite her, Sesshoumaru reclined against his own, gazing at the scenery with a touch of daydream hazing his eyes. The light bathed his hair in a gentle glow, eyes the colour of milky honey instead of the usual burning embers.

So lost in thought was he that Kagome smiled. She then cleared her throat to gain his languid attention, turning the sketchbook around so that the page faced him.

"I win," she said softly.

Surprise slackened his expression, attention flitting over the paper where his likeness lay with impressive attention to detail. The pencil shading captured the soft shadows of his face, the richer, darker tones coloured his chest armour. Even the long silver hair looked sublime, life-like. Somehow the minute details and the idea of her watching- staring at him for so long made his ancient blood heat.

He realised, somewhat belatedly, that this was what he'd sought. Not a quick, cheap snap of a camera, but her willing and arrested attention upon his face.

Sesshoumaru dragged his gaze from the picture to dancing blue eyes.

"Indeed."

Kagome smiled, turning the picture back to gaze at it with affection.

"Why did you desire a picture of this one so badly?" he asked.

Not looking up, she brushed a thumb over the sketches pointed ear. "I like having pictures of my friends. Besides, this is yours now. A thank you gift for saving me."

Sesshoumaru observed her carefully, noticing the quiet fondness gentling her features as she looked at the picture instead of him. Because it was safer than gazing at him.

"Let me see it up close," Sesshoumaru uttered.

Kagome raised her head and blinked but nonetheless rose and walked over. The second she crouched before him- a clawed hand shot out, wrapping around her wrist and tugging.

This resulted in her body swaying forward, nose stopping inches from his as she squeaked.

"You seem to find satisfaction in looking at this one, miko," his voice curled into a teasing tone. "Perhaps this proximity is preferable."

Kagome's mouth turned dry, heart thundering. Setting the sketchbook down and shifting her knees beneath her, she nodded with a shy smile. "Y-yeah...it is. I'm glad you noticed," she murmured, placing her hands on the cool, steady metal of his chest plate. When she did not pull away in rejection, Sesshoumaru's clawed hand slid possessively to her waist. An aristocratic nose brushed hers, mouth hovering close.

"Do you do this with your friends too?"

She huffed, blushing. "No, only with crushes."

Thin lips tugged up at the edges before spreading wider with victory, flashing a fang. Kagome found it perfectly endearing. A rare, beautiful moment she wished she could capture forever. But, as the Daiyoukai guided her mouth to his wickedly grinning one, she figured they had plenty of opportunities to repeat such a soft moment, however many times they wished.

End

#sesskag #skw2020 #Sesshoumaru x Kagome #sesskagweek 2020 #Kagome Higurashi #Sesshoumaru #Inuyasha

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fortheloveoffanfic · 4 years

Text

Taking Chances 2/4

Keanu Reeves x Reader (A/n- Switching perspectives without clear divisions cause why not)

1 2 3 4

Warnings- Brief mentions of smut, cheesy romance stuff

Ayiana and Mark had left when the rain had slowed, and Keanu had insisted that they take the rented car back, after agreeing with Y/n that they could fend for themselves. After the couple had left though, tipsy and all over each other, the rain, as predicted by the forecast, had grown heavy again. Though, as the night waned on, most patrons, drunk and tired, had opted to bare the worst of the storm, leaving the pub scantily populated, with Keanu and his newfound friend cozied in a booth near the back, where the lights were lowest, beer bottles and empty glasses laid out on the table. By then, Y/n’s clothes were mostly dried, as was her hair, now in messy curls framing her gorgeous face. “Wait,” drunkenly, Y/n giggled, leaning in so Keanu could catch a whiff of the alluring remnants of her perfume mixing intoxicatingly with the scent of alcohol, “Say that again.”

“Okay, okay,” her fit of musical giggles were contagious and Keanu could help but grin wider as he realized how absolutely breathtaking Y/n was when she smiled, “I got up to check the air, and just like that this lady rear ends me.”

“And the bike slides out from under you?” She finished, eyes wide and her soiree interrupted by her gaping in shock.

“Basically, yeah,” Keanu nodded, “It was insane!” He laughed a bit louder, not caring how much attention they attracted, only quelling the sound when he finished off his latest drink. They’d had so many by then, that they’d both lost count and Y/n and Keanu could both safely say that they were way past drunk.

“But you were okay right?” And just like that, her glassy eyes were sparkling with genuine worry, and again, Y/n leaned in a tad bit closer. The nearer she drew, the harder it was to ignore how plump her lips were, how much Keanu wanted to kiss her. It was so strange, they didn’t know each other very well, and Keanu knew that Y/n would probably be gone by the next day; but he thought he could listen to her for a lifetime, her laugh, her voice, even her silences were enjoyable. She was so unlike anyone he’d ever met, funny, intelligent, confident, but also so very shy at times, blushing when he least expected and laughing at his worst jokes. It wasn’t forced or fake laughter either, it was real, full bodied and melodious.

“Yeah,” Keanu’s smile softened as he reassured her, still surprised by her unexpected concern, “I was standing, so everything turned out fine.” They broke into a bout of silence, a brief one, which Keanu broke, "So, what brings you to Luxembourg? I mean, you're definitely not from around here."

At that, Y/n blushed, thinking back on how she'd messed up the accents on very simple words earlier, "I'm not," she chortled quietly, they'd just been equipped with fresh drinks, and as she thought of her answer, mind to blurry to work out all the details, she spun the glass in her hand, eyeing the whiskey inside with broken focus, "I'm actually here for…...inspiration. I thought some kind of spontaneous trip would somehow get the creative juices flowing, I'm a writer, or at least, I'm supposed to be," she chuckled dryly, "I used to be a journalist."

"Career change? You didn't like it?" Keanu furrowed his brows, holding his chin in his palm, elbow planted on the table. He wanted to know everything about her, willing to listen to anything she'd say, and based on their interaction, he could tell she felt the same.

"I did," Y/n took a sip of her drink, staring off to the cleared tables ahead wistfully, "I traveled sometimes, but usually I'd be in Washington, covering press conferences and that kind of stuff. It was pretty boring," frowning, Y/n tried to put her thoughts into words, "I always wanted to be a writer, you know, write a novel or something that people would read even when I'm gone."

Like she had back at the bar, though with the moment feeling far more intimate, Keanu took Y/n's hand, curling his fingers over hers, rubbing his thumb over her knuckles, her skin silky smooth. Her plight resonated with him, the burning desire to leave behind a legacy, make his own unique mark in the world sometimes haunted him too sometimes. "But?"

"But?" Huffing with a faint smile, Y/n shook her head, taking another lengthy sip of her drink, "But I don't know how. I mean, what am I even supposed to write about?"

"Whatever you want," Keanu chuckled with a new enthusiasm. Untangling their hands, Keanu rummaged through his pocket for his wallet, eventually producing enough cash to cover their bill and more, before standing and offering Y/n his hand, "Come on."

Confused by his erratic behavior, Y/n's lips hung agape, finding it hard to formulate any semblance of a sentence, "What're…..what?"

"Trust me?" His plea was half a question for her to actually do it and half an inquisition to gauge how much she actually trusted him.

"Trust you?" Y/n shot back incredulously, though still taking Keanu's hand, their fingers interlacing easily, feeling as if they were made to fit, "I don't even know you!" Already, they were already at the front door, and Keanu was pushing it open, pulling Y/n along as he stepped onto the slippery, wet sidewalk. The sound of the downpour, accompanied by the claps of thunder and occasional burst of lightning welcomed them. Heavy drops hit the street and pavement, splattering upwards, in some areas creating huge puddles. In an instant, even though they were still under the guard of the under-croft, their feet were soaked, water clinging to the hem of Y/n's tea length sundress and soaking her wedged sandals, while Keanu's boots were completely saturated, as were his jeans. "Is your plan to get us sick?"

"No," Keanu flashed her a mischievous grin, the act enough to add a distinct boyishness to his rugged features, despite the evidence of salt in his trimmed beard, "You're here for inspiration, so let's find you some. You know what they say about experience."

Squaring up to brace the weather, Keanu gave her one final glance to ensure Y/n was ready too, and when her eyes complied, he led her out. In an instant, they were drenched, cold rain water matting hair to their skin and making their clothes cling to their bodies. Y/n barely had a moment to even be concerned with how wet the contents of her bag would be, or even the fact that she was still holding Keanu's hand when there was someone at home waiting for her. All that mattered then and there was the glee on Keanu's face, how contagious it was and how much she wished they could stay like that forever. "Well where are we going for this experience?"

"This is the experience!" Keanu laughed giddily, stopping when they were stood in the middle of the deserted street to look up at the sky, "You can't tell me you've ever walked through a foreign town, with a complete stranger during a storm in the middle of the night."

It was an oddly specific situation and Y/n without even thinking of it, resigned to sharing in his excitement, "No!" It was a strain for her soft voice to combat the sounds around them, "I can't say I have." They were walking down the cobblestone street, following the gentle slope downward, occasionally stumbling as a result of all the alcohol they'd had. It was cold, though neither of them noticed; the company was warm enough, and as they walked, Y/n looked around, closed stores looking vastly different from what they were like back home. There weren't bright lights embedded in the showcase, meant to display products even during closing, and everything just seemed so beautifully vintage, straight out of a forties film noir.

"Tell me something about yourself," Keanu broke her thoughts as they grew further and further from the pub.

Briefly, Y/n turned to him, biting her lip at how enthralling he looked like that, so picture perfect, as if a snapshot from a movie had been plucked out of a television and placed right next to her. Keanu was nothing like Noah, he was enigmatic and fascinating because of his unpredictability. He laughed easier and much louder, he was shy and bold at the same time and much to her surprise, they didn't have any sort of awkward "getting to know you" period, they'd just lapsed into familiarity in merely a few minutes. "What do you want to know?"

“Anything,” everything. Keanu grinned broadly, knowing that he’d likely be content with listening to her for the rest of his time, without ever growing tired. “Just say anything,” being with Y/n, staggering through the rain, the sound of her kitten heels on cobblestone muted by the weather and her palm warm and right in his, couldn’t be anything other than the optimum of perfection. He’d never felt that at ease with someone, so ready to bare his soul to a stranger, “And I’ll listen.”

For a brief moment, Y/n glanced at Keanu, her smile faltering, softening, as their eyes met. Part of her knew it was wrong; the way she was feeling. If she were sober, then maybe things might have been different, but Y/n’s speech was slurred and her vision was blurry. Her mind was cloudy too, bombarded only with thoughts of Keanu; how much she was enjoying having his hand in hers, how devilishly handsome he was, how desperately she wanted to kiss him. Abruptly, with a pink hue, hidden by the darkness, spreading on her cheeks, Y/n turned away, “Lets see,” she deliberated, “My favorite book is The Great Gatsby, I moved to Washington for college when I was eighteen,” she thought some more, “And I love eighties music!”

Throwing his head back in wild euphoria, Keanu gazed at her, “Were you even alive in the eighties?”

“Nope!” Y/n giggled, almost tripping, only to be caught by Keanu, who took the initiative to pull her closer. Her laughter sobered, and in the back of her mind, Y/n knew she should pull away, tell Keanu the truth, but his embrace was warmer than anything she’d ever felt, and when she stole another glance at him, only to find him gazing down at her, his expression illuminated by the flickering street lamp, all she could see was a face that seemed strange and oddly familiar simultaneously. Then it hit her, she didn’t want to tell him, Y/n wanted to live like that with him, even if just for the rest of the night. It was out-rightly selfish, and utterly wrong, but she had a feeling that Keanu was worth it. Her heart hadn’t fluttered like that in a long time, and it had been ages since she’d done something so spontaneous.

Keanu hadn’t noted that he’d been leading Y/n in the direction of the hotel that he’d been staying at until the elegant building came into view, yellow lights glittering through the screen doors leading to individual balconies and the valet’s station vacant, possibly due to the storm. “Where are you staying tonight?” Keanu inquired as they floundered towards the front doors.

“I…..” Wide eyed, Y/n stuttered, “I have no idea,” despite her distress, she was still smiling faintly, I guess I’ll get a room here.” Already, they’d stepped through the door, greeted by the middle aged doorman who warmly welcomed the two with French salutations. Easing her hand from Keanu’s grip, moving some soaked hair from her face and tucking it behind her ear, Y/n twisted her body to rummage through the contents of her handbag, searching for her purse, in hopes that the hotel would have an unbooked room.

“Or you could just stay with me,” Keanu blurted, causing Y/n to stare up at him with a perfectly surprised expression, “Come on, it’ll be fun, we can have some more drinks, get to know each other better, it’ll be fun.” Holding his breath, Keanu hung on to the hope that she’d say yes; he really wasn’t ready to lose her company yet.

Internally, Y/n debated Keanu’s offer. It seemed appealing, and she wanted to say yes, to just go for it and see where the night took them. But she was engaged, and maybe going up there with him was taking the fun too far, she already felt like a cheater anyway. Not because of what she’d done exactly, you could hold anyone’s hand and it would mean nothing, no, the guilt had bubbled up like a broil in the pit of her stomach because of how she’d felt. You shouldn’t feel the way she did about Keanu when you had someone waiting for you to come back. To come home.

But Paris wasn’t home, and while she’d tried to make Noah her home, like he’d done with her, Y/n knew she was straying, far, far away from what was ordinarily familiar. She didn’t want familiar that night, she wanted Keanu, the thrill, the loud laughter that she’d easily sunk into, the feeling of getting lost in his whiskey eyes and the insurmountable comfort that came from simply holding his calloused hand. Y/n had the burning urge to know him, learn him, hold on and not let go. The feelings swirling around in her chest weren’t ones that Y/n thought could be built so quickly, yet there they were, and all she could say to his offer was, “Let's do it.”

Stunned by her willingness, Keanu’s features brightened tremendously, and he swore he’d never smiled so hard, “Great!” Taking her hand again, they trotted towards the elevator, leaving the deserted lobby behind, squinting at the bright lights and foggy reflections that dazzled their eyes as they entered the metal contraption. It took a minute or too, his eyes squinted and his stocky fingers fumbling until he found the ‘15’ button, hitting it harder than he should have. As they went up, they found that the air in there was colder than it had been downstairs, and when a shiver ran through Y/n, Keanu, without thinking of it, wiggled his fingers out of hers, proceeding to drape his long arm over her shoulders, reeling her in.

Instinctively, Y/n nuzzled into his side, reveling in the warmth that radiated off his body despite his soaked outfit, swallowing tightly as she tilted her head upwards, only to find that Keanu was studying her, his expression soft, though wanting. No one had ever looked at her like that, not even Noah; like she was everything that mattered, all wrapped up in one person. Like she held the clarity to every unanswerable question in her eyes. Like love could be simply contained in a stare. Love? Love. For probably the first time since they’d sat down in the pub, Y/n stopped smiling, though, it was only because the giddiness had been replaced by something more…….consuming. Thoughts of drinks and a chat late into what remained of the night dispersed, and the lump in her throat only thickened. Tell him, one voice urged, while the more careless one pleaded with her to just let things unfold. One night with a man who’d made her feel like she was the only woman in the world couldn’t be so bad, could it?

As if it were fated, their faces gravitated towards each other, just as Y/n turned slightly in Keanu’s embrace, cocking her head to the side. His lips were barely a hair away from descending upon hers and she could readily smell the alcohol on his breath, mixing with the scent of the rain and a long smoked cigarette. Altogether, it was alluring, and Y/n wondered if the next day she’d be able to go back to a life without it; if she’d be able to leave Keanu behind. She didn’t want to find out. As he came closer, her breath hitched, the soft sound contained in the hollow of her throat, and right as it was about to happen, right as she was about to finally break a sacred promise, the elevator dinged, the doors sliding open, ready to the deposit the pair on the sleepy hallway of the hotel’ fifteenth floor.

“We should…..” Keanu trailed off, not able to quite shake off the feeling that had prompted him to try to initiate a kiss in the elevator, though still leading Y/n towards his room, down the end of the hall. Secretly, he hoped that the moment could be rekindled when they reached their destination, it would be a lie if he’d said he hadn’t wanted to kiss Y/n since the moment they’d met. The thought had bounced around in his head all night, hope building in his chest every time their eyes locked, but the time never seemed as right as it had until they were in the elevator. Clumsily, he shoved his key card into the designated slot, swearing under his breath when he’d gotten it wrong the first two times, the mood only lightened by Y/n’s incessant giggles at his plight from nearby. When Keanu finally got it right, he was the first to enter, though she was close on his heels as he slapped the light switch near the door.

Still laughing, Y/n barely noticed the kink in the carpet in the threshold, getting caught in her shoe, resulting in her stumbling forward and right into Keanu’s arms. Luckily though, he caught her, his hands planted on her waist, bunching up the fabric of her pleated, dusty rose colored dress, beneath her cropped leather jacket. Even when she was steadied, Keanu’s grip remained, only loosening to slip to her hips. Feeling the air around them grow electric once again, Y/n took the tiniest step forward, only just registering how close they’d already been. Once again, Keanu was staring at her, the way he had been during their moment in the elevator, “He looked at her the way all women wanted to be looked at by a man,” she quoted breathlessly, not quite sure why she’d felt the need to do that, her lips already ghosting Keanu’s.

“What?” Keanu knitted his brows, his arms moving again to circle Y/n’s waist, his tongue hurriedly darting out to moisten his lips as she stood on the tips of her toes to reach him better.

Raising her hands, Y/n tangled her fingers in his shaggy, wet mane, when the other hand cupped his neck, feeling his scruff tickle her thumb. Barely, she registered the low twinkle of her engagement ring, occasionally made mute by the bursts of lightning that brightened the suite. “Nothing,” Y/n leaned in. Heartbeat to heartbeat, quick breaths in sync and minds only focused on one thing, they finally let it happen. Hot lips, meeting, taking a minute to feel each other out, slow and sweet as Y/n tasted him for the first time, though, growing passionate when their tongues warred. Better judgment was never going to prevail, and when Keanu found the edges of her jacket, pushing it off, she let him, thoughts of anything and everything that was outside of their bubble, fade away.

******

Tagging- @harrisongslimited @magnificentclodpiebanana @keandrews @greenmanalishi @rdjloverxxx @danceoftwowolves @planetkt @iworshipkeanureeves

#keanu reeves #keanu reeves x reader #keanu reeves fanfic #keanu reeves x you #john wick x reader #john wick x you #john wick fanfic #fanfic #fanfction #keanu reeves ff #ff #john wick ff #fluff #taking chances #2/4 #ansgt #john wick fanfiction #keanu reeves fanfiction

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robertsheehanownsmyass · 4 years

Note

Love the first! Could I request a fluff tom x f fic?

Aether

Tom Natsworthy + Reader

Warnings: some violence, injury

If we don’t retire soon, we’re both gonna die.

You were out searching for small towns that had either been damaged by scavengers or predator cities, or were stranded and in need of resources. These aid missions were something you started doing with Tom between more important missions. It was important to you to try to give back to make the world a slightly better place; lord knows it was hard for everyone out there.

You had been flying low over the hunting grounds, looking for any signs of S.O.S., when you found one small town lying at the bottom of an enormous tire tread, tiled on its side and smoking.

Tom had carefully set the ship down near the edge of the tread and you climbed down to the damaged town. “Be careful,” he said to you and squeezed your arm, as the two of you inched closer to the smoking wreckage. You nodded. “How does the old saying go? This isn’t my first rodeo?”

Tom smirked and stifled a chuckle, raising a finger to his lips in the universal “shh” gesture.

You had made it to one large set of metal doors, which had been partially bashed open and damaged, possibly when the town had toppled over.

“This doesn’t look good,” you breathed. Tom gave you an answering look before gently knocking on one of the broken doors, which made a large echoing sound throughout the interior of the vessel. “Hello,” he called tentatively. “Is anyone there? Does anyone need help?”

You focused on listening as carefully as you could. You couldn’t hear any signs of life. Encountering situations such as these, no matter how often it happened, always made you terribly sad. “Hello?” Tom called again. He turned to you, his expression regretful. “I don’t think there’s anyone left alive here.”

As soon as the words were out of his mouth, a projectile shot from the darkness behind the broken doors. “What the--!” you yelled, and Tom was already pulling you away by the hand before you could finish the thought. “It’s a trap!” he shouted. The two of you raced back toward the ship, and you thought you could hear a sort of feral growling behind you, making the hair on the back of your neck prickle. “Scavengers,” you cursed under your breath. They were animals and preyed on the weak with zero empathy; devourers of lives and livelihoods. They were also really damned tenacious, and could pursue you relentlessly.

Tom was just pulling you up to the top of the tread when he shouted, “Look out!” and pushed you away. You landed awkwardly, sprawled on the ground. You looked up but didn’t see Tom anywhere. “Tom!” you shrieked, panicked. You stood up and ran to where he pushed you and found him lying on the ground, a sizable harpoon sticking out of his chest just below his right clavicle. He groaned.

Oh my god. “Tom!” you yelled as you fell to your knees beside him in the dirt. “No no no you can’t be hurt, you have to get up. Tom, you have to get up they are coming…”

“Ungh,” he grunted through gritted teeth, clearly in a huge amount of pain. You slung his good arm over your shoulders to help him stand. “Come on Tom, we have to go.” You helped him toward the ship, and you could hear the scavengers scrambling up the side of the tread toward you. You managed to get the both of you inside, the hydraulic doors slamming shut behind you just as a trio of scavengers made it to the top of the tread. “Tom, can you fly?” you asked, frightened.

“I think...I think I can…” he replied quietly. He was losing a lot of blood. You helped him into the pilot’s chair and he started automatically hitting buttons and flicking switches, muscle memory taking over. He hugged his right arm across his upper chest where four inches of iron protruded from his body, but there was nothing you could do about that now. As the scavengers began shooting projectiles at your ship, Tom got the engines going and you lifted off the ground.

You watched him carefully as you flew toward London, but he actually seemed to be alright, despite the pain that gripped him every time he moved. You were surprised then when as soon as you landed, he slumped over in his seat, unconscious. “Tom,” you yelled, shaking him. “Oh no, Tom,” you shouted. I can’t lose him. No….

The next several hours were a blur. You found help, and got him to the hospital. Tom didn’t regain consciousness. A snapshot of him lying on a stretcher with his hand dangling off the side was seared into your mind. The blood was running down his arm and drip, drip, dripping from his fingers…

You shook your head to clear your mind of that unpleasant image as a physician entered the room where you waited. You stood anxiously. “Will Tom be alright?” The doctor nodded, and you sank back into your chair with relief. “He lost a lot of blood and we had to surgically remove the object, but he should make a full recovery as long as we can stave off infection.”

“Oh thank god,” you said. “May I go see him?”

The doctor nodded. “Yes. He’s groggy but awake. You can go on back.”

Even though the doctor said he would be alright, your heart squeezed painfully when you saw him lying in bed with tubes and beeping things everywhere. He turned his head and looked at you when you entered the room, and he smiled beautifully. You hastened to his side and sat next to the bed, taking his hand and pressing it to your lips. “I thought I was going to lose you,” you whispered.

“I’m okay,” he said, a little hoarsely, but reassuringly. “I’m going to be okay.”

“I know what we’re doing is important for humanity, but I’m so scared of losing you that I can hardly bear it. I love you, Tom.” you said, as tears pricked your eyes.

He opened his eyes wider at that, as you hadn’t admitted your feelings to him before, but you were pretty sure everyone already knew.

“Y/N, I…” he began.

“You don’t have to say anything Tom,” you interrupted. “I just wanted you to know.”

“No, Y/N...I wanted to tell you that I've had feelings for you for ages. I just was afraid to say something and screw up our friendship.”

“You have?” you asked. You felt your heart lift and you thought perhaps if you had to, you could fly.

He nodded. “I think I’ve loved you from the moment I saw you.”

With a joyous laugh, you stood and kissed him gently on the lips. “I don’t believe it,” you said after the kiss, wiping tears from your eyes. Tom smiled up at you.

“So when I get out of here, what do you want to do?”

You wished you could tell him that you wanted to find a nice corner of the world to hole up in and have lots of babies, but it was probably a bit soon for that.

Instead, you shrugged and smiled. “Let’s go on vacation.”

Tom laughed. “It’s a date.”

#tom natsworthy x reader #mortal engines fanfic #robert sheehan character fic #drabble #answered

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himbo-buckley · 4 years

Text

INTIMACY, SEX AND BUDDIE (BETTER KNOWN AS I HAVE A LOT OF FEELINGS ABOUT THIS SHOW, SOME OF WHICH ARE RELATED TO THE BEFORE MENTIONED TOPICS) - Part 3

Well, hello there (again)!

 I got to say, this was both my favourite and least favourite part to write because by now all my theories are (hopefully) explained enough that I can just ramble about the characters and connections and ya’ll will forgive me if I stray away from what’s actually happening in this episode. Which I will do. A lot actually.

On the other hand side I have so many thoughts about what’s happening and this is gonna be long af as I started writing on part three at the same time as I wrote part 1 and 2 and I barely found things to cut, which means we are clocking in at a casual 7700 words. So maybe get that drink now, cause it’ll be a ride!

Also the links to part one and part two

And look, by now you probably know the drill but I’m just gonna give you my preface again:

This meta was supposed to be a lot shorter and only talk about how both Buck and Eddie use sex to distract their respective partners from whatever topic they actually wanted to talk about but since I decided to rewatch the show to make sure I don’t miss any such scenes, it has exploded a bit and taken on more topics

I should also mention that I am a Buddie shipper and while I tried, you will find several references and arguments for the ship in this Meta, not all of which necessarily call for a romantic pairing but just: These two are deeply connected and you cannot look at one without discussing the other and they are each other’s strongest emotional connection.

I should also preface this by saying that the whole of the 118 has some obvious intimacy / commitment issues except Bobby (which is sort of surprising) but *John Mulaney voice* we don’t have time to unpack all of that!

On another note I cuss a little in this Meta because my parents let me listen to TicTacToe as a small child and after that it never stuck that cussing is wrong so, uhm, parental supervision is advised or something

This Meta will so far have FOUR parts now. The original plan was to do three, one for each Season and is organised by episode so you could technically follow along, but due to personal reasons, also known as *feelings*, Season 3 has already exploded disproportionately and for readability reasons I have split it in two (this is part three, the cut will happen after Christmas, it works storyline-wise)

And now, for our next instalment of I read too much into things: Season 3A (also called: „Eddie Diaz, stop being such a boy scout (Wait, no, not like that!)“)

Episode 3.01:

911 as a show has a fairly interesting way of storytelling where it sometimes feels a little like they cut together snapshots of lives in regards to certain topics. And because of that you only ever see a small part of the lives of the characters. That being said: I hate hate hate how 5 months passed between the Season 2 final and the first episode of Season 3 and aside from a few offhand remarks we get virtually nothing. Also it’s very unrealistic that Bobby and Athena didn’t have any parties for 5 months, like nope, I don’t believe you show!

That being said, I appreciate how much time it took Buck to heal because it’s realistic! And also most importantly gets Oliver Stark a chance to truly shine!

I wanna take this chance real quick, to thank the producers and writer both for writing Evan Buckley the way they write him and for casting Oliver Stark to play him because omg, it works so well! Look, Oliver Stark is attractive. He is buff and handsome, but he is not perfect. He is Tinder-buff, not MCU-I haven’t seen a drop of water in a month-buff, he’s the kind of fit that will fill the whole screen one minute and make you say „Wait, I thought he was wider than this!“ the next (you know how everyone always talks about the hips to shoulder ration of Chris Evans? Yeah, the opposite of that) . And he has a really pretty face but his nose is a little too cocked and he has scars and there’s the „adorable facemark“ and he seems so damn dorky which is exactly why Evan „Buck“ Buckley works, why he is hot. And he gets to be emotional and sensitive and caring on top of that and yeah, I don’t know if I wanna be him or date him anymore either. Like he singlehandedly made me rethink my view on dating, just because I am hoping for someone like him.

Anyways, that’s probably something none of you wanted to read about in a META so we’ll get to the juicy stuff now, alright?

One thing that I realised as I watched season 3 for the third time just now is how often it repeats itself. It feels a bit stagnant at times, the way the characters make two steps forward and one step back all the time, most notably in Bobby.

I wanna talk about Bobby for once because you can not look at Buck in Season 3 without looking at Bobby as well. These two characters are connected the same way Buck is connected to Eddie. Most things Buck does character wise in Season 3 are caused by Bobby’s actions, in the same way most of Eddie’s are caused by Buck.

And the thing that 3.01 tells us from the get go? Bobby thinks of Buck as somewhat of a son (which we knew already) and Bobby sees himself in Buck, which is why he does what he probably hoped someone would have done for him the 10 or something years ago when he hurt is back and holds him back. There is also the fact that he tries to teach Buck to have a life outside the firehouse, though that is something he probably should at some point in the near future actually voice to Buck, because Buck on his own can not draw these conclusions from Bobby’s actions. Buck on his own thinks it’s about him not being good enough and so he works himself to the bone to try and proof otherwise. (Someone please just finally tell him what a good boy he is? Yeah?)

As for the scene during the party, you could actually see how much Buck had to force himself to be that open and that vulnerable with Bobby (and not just because he is *literally* having an embolism) and that hurts because to this day Buck has not realised that Bobby will always be there to catch him. Buck still thinks he needs to proof himself to Bobby because of his firing in Season 1. And would you believe I actually cried a little typing these words?

And now I’m gonna talk about my agenda, also known as Buddie real quick, and point you toward the fact that while we have seen Eddie be vulnerable with Buck and Buck be vulnerable with everyone else we have not seen Buck be audibly vulnerable with Eddie and I do not think this is a coincident at all.

Look, Eddie is a guarded guy, right? He has a hard time being vulnerable, a hard time asking for help, a hard time giving up control. But he does all these things with Buck and he does them willingly and with barely an outside push, which is different to say with Bobby. Eddie let’s himself fall with Buck and by doing so raises Buck’s self worth and gives him the feeling of being in control Buck craves so much (while Eddie sort of despises it because he feels like he always has to be the one in control), but it also means that Buck is afraid to let himself fall with Eddie because it might mean Eddie won’t trust him again. Buck generally is a very emotional guy and he doesn’t seem afraid to voice his weaknesses, in fact he is probably too aware of them and too willing to let others poke at them, except with Eddie. With Eddie Buck always tries for strong, because he knows Eddie needs him to be and because he thinks, if he’s not, Eddie will see what everyone else saw and leave him. On Eddie’s side I do think by now he is more than willing to catch Buck and still let himself be caught in return. At least at this point.

(also, if we do ever get Buddie I could see a reverse of the Shannon-Eddie situation happening where Eddie is the one being open and Buck has a hard time being emotionally vulnerable, afraid it’ll scare Eddie off and he’ll leave like everyone else.)

But then, one could also point out that Eddie probably knows all the things going on with Buck anyways because I truly think they know each other inside out and are two feathers of the same bird and same recognises same and all that - it’s just that Buck is someone who needs to actually voice his feelings to deal with them, so unless he voices his vulnerabilities to Eddie, for him, the other guy doesn’t know them. (Except Eddie does know.) (and man, I wish the rest of the 911 would finally figure out that with Buck you always - always - have to say things! You can’t just imply. You can’t think your actions speak loud enough. You need to actually use your words and do so in a way that leaves no doubt because that boy thinks so little of himself and he will make himself doubt every nice thing that ever happens to him.)

Now, moving back to what’s actually happening in the episode and why all of this is important:

We have the very important talk in the Station were text points out some of the things I just said and Eddie realises that he needs to do better, so he pulls a Buck and steamrolls him. (also do we truly believe that Carla was out of the country? Do we? Do we not think Eddie spent the whole ride over coaching his son on lying to his best friend because Eddie is just like that?)

Also I love how before this Maddie is talking to Josh and she says something along the lines of wether she should push Buck or coddle him and it cuts to Eddie trying the first.

On Eddie’s side of this meta we somewhat learn where Eddie’s issues stem from and it’s of course Daddy issues because this show loves them very much. (Seriously, out of 5 firefighters 3 have confirmed absent fathers causing issues and one has it heavily implied. Tim Minear, do you wanna talk?)

Also, Ramon Diaz probably threw in a „real men don’t cry“ with his macho speech about just brushing shit off and thereby emotionally crippling his child further, because he seems cliche like that.

Sidenote: The Buck and Christopher relationship is so beautiful and important and „Some cool outfits, too.“ is one of my favourite lines, though I do have to say - as someone who works professionally with kids - that this is what really shows how much Eddie truly thinks of Buck and how much he trusts him because it’s safe to assume that Buck has never been alone with Christopher or any child for longer and has never had to take care of one by himself and yet Eddie just trusts him to take care of his son for what is probably a 24h shift. Truly magnificent. An unparalleled relationship. So meaningful.

Episode 3.02:

No actual relevance but I do wanna point out that the thing about the mom being the love of boat guys life but her son being her’s? Yeah, that’s Eddie (and Buck).

Also, Buck’s just a natural at being a dad (not because of the fun stuff but the stuff when he knew exactly how to distract Christopher when those bodies floated by) and at some point I need Eddie to point this out to him and I need him to voice his jealousy about it, because Eddie? Not a natural dad.

(I actually think that is something that is true about a lot of things for these two. I mean yes, Buck is a hard worker but I think only in areas he is already naturally gifted (remember that whole thing with the Seals? “You just have to be badass, which I am?”) and he generally doesn’t try if things don’t come naturally because Buck hates failure because Buck already feels like a failure. Meanwhile Eddie seems like the kind of guy who has this huge capacity for learning, so even if something doesn’t come naturally to him (like fatherhood) he has the determination and willingness to try and try again until he finally gets it right and is perfect because Eddie, too, hates failure.) (And now I wanna see more about their childhoods because I could actually see Buck be somewhat of a gifted child in his youth who never learned how to actually apply himself and because of that has always been told he had so much wasted potential while Eddie was either an overarchiver or a slacker, I’m sorry I don’t make the rules. Or maybe I am projecting.)

Episode 3.03:

I read somewhere on tumblr that Ryan Guzman and his wife thought Eddie and Lena would be a thing and where actually on board and I was like? No?

I mean I do love the way she takes one look at him and decides he needs his ego checked (and also Eddie is like: ui, me like-y! (maybe because he misses another person that used to be an asshole to him right off the bat?)).

Also love all the references to Eddie being in the army („The 118 is huffing it“-scene comes to mind). Again, kudos to Ryan Guzman for always acting with all his body, because you can always feel the army training in his posture like the way he usually stands just a little bit straighter than everyone else (well, at least that’s what it looks like to me, someone who has not been in the Army and knows only like two people that got drafted and no one who went willingly, because my country generally doesn’t do that these days ).

As for what is happening in the episode, I think it’s a reference to Shannon that Eddie dealt with that couple that, despite loving each other a lot and getting along fairly well, decided to get divorced. Which is what 911 should have done with Shannon. (Me being salty about Shannon? It’s more likely than you think.)

I also think it’s a nice parallel the way both Lena and Buck are so desperate to search for their missing loved one with no regard for their own safety and I’m assuming Eddie saw Buck in Lena’s actions as well, which is why he trusts her so fast. (Because Eddie just like Buck is looking for connection and intimacy but Eddie is even worse at creating it than Buck, so he just tries to recreate the one working bond he truly has.) (Something actually proven in text by Eddie: becoming a firefighter because he misses the army.)

And I know everyone and their mother has already pointed out how Eddie was not worried about Chris at all because his son was with Buck and he knows Buck would never let anything bad happen to his son ever.

Which is why *that* scene is even more heartbreaking, because Eddie has so much trust in his Buck and kudos to Ryan Guzman because man, the way you see Eddie steel himself for what Buck is saying? The way you can feel him pulling himself together because Buck needs him to hear this. (Look, the scene is about a father learning from the person he trusts most in the world that his son might be dead and they could have easily forshadowed Eddie’s fighting ark by having him react negatively and violently here but instead he stays calm because it’s Buck and Buck for once needs him to be the one in control - also, on a less ship-y note because Eddie’s world is falling apart right there and he needs to keep in control because if he doesn’t, he will probably never be again.)

Which brings us to that scene in the loft, and listen, I know I said at the end of part 2 Eddie barely had any character development in the two seasons since we met him, but uhm, this scene? Proves he had some development, because right then right there he is so fucking vulnerable with Buck. It is of course part of him being a protector because just like with Shannon in 2.04 he realises that this is was Buck needs him to be right now, so vulnerable it is.

I do think however that it’s beautiful how Eddie apparently took the time during a fucking natural disaster to figure out that Evan Buckley needs him to use his actual words, so use his actual words he does.

And I do wanna point out that this is something he never had with Shannon, Eddie was never able to figure out what is wife of what? 7-8 years needed of him but he does know what his best friends needs. And wether that is just Buddie or just plain old character development, remains to be seen.

(Though we should mention that it wasn’t a permanent thing, Eddie does fail Buck a few times in Season 3 (but he also doesn’t a few other times) but we’ll get to that when we get to that!)

Also, honourable mention to Maddie Buckley-Kendall for getting that phone call and probably nearly dying of a heart attack and then having to race to the VA thinking the worst and probably imagining her very selfless brother either being already gone by the time she gets there or close to dead - only to probably arrive there and see Christopher in a bed with Eddie sitting next to him and Buck sitting vigil a few feet away because he doesn’t think he deserves to be with the Diaz’s anymore but he also can’t bear to part from them!

And another mention to the poor stranger who probably never got their phone back.

Also a teeny bit mad they forgot to give Oliver scars on his legs.

Episode 3.04

First of all I gotta say Eddie is such a boy scout goody two shoes with his whole „Well, it’s mandated!“ (also he’s been probably hanging out with Buck a buncha times in whatever many weeks passed since the Tsunami and therefore knew how hard his best friend worked on this and he’s gonna be supportive, kay?)

That being said, remember when I talked about two steps forward, one step back? Yeah, that.

As for the lawsuit, look, we could argue all day on wether it was justified or not, but I personally do think Buck had a basis. But he was also acting rash and hadn’t thought all the implications through and should have used his words instead, but quick reminder: Buck has severe abandonment issues and he has problems with emotional intimacy - so the whole talking about it? Not that easy.

Also, imagine working for months to come back to work, the one thing you think you’re good at and thinking you have everyone’s support only to find out the person you love like a father has betrayed you, probably with the knowledge of everyone else. Yeah, you’d lash out too!

Even though, I have to point out it’s not his normal MO (which is why we see him regret it almost immediately in the next episode).

As for Eddie in this episode, he has not one, not two, not three, but four whole conversations about feelings! You go buddy-boy. Embrace that character development! Don’t take a step back! … or, nevermind, we all know what happens next.

That being said I think it’s interesting that while Chimney clearly confides in him, Eddie does not confide in him in return but rather talks to female!Buck. I mean, talking about his struggles with his son and his family worked with him and Buck so why not with him and Lena (cause Lena isn’t Buck).

I do think Eddie and Chimney are close, but Eddie just doesn’t feel the same connection to him as he feels to Buck.

As for Eddie being so beautifully open and vulnerable with his son and saying like the exact opposite of what he had been taught: Eddie loves his son. He loves his son more than anything in the world. And if Eddie can’t let himself be vulnerable with him, who can he be vulnerable with? Especially when it helps Christopher.

(Also, Eddie by now recognises what is wrong with him, he just doesn’t think he can change it but he can prevent it from happening to his child.)

Episode 3.05:

This episode has a lot of shit happening and I have a lot of thoughts, most of which are relevant to the episode. But we’re gonna start slow, ease you in:

Boy do I love overprotective Dad!Eddie! How long do you think did it took Carla and Christopher to convince Eddie to let Chris sleep over at his friends? A month?

In other news Buck is just the picture of regret during the deposition and yeah, he should be. The whole thing is harsh. Never sue your friends, no matter how justified, if you want them to stay your friends! But it’s so obvious Buck didn’t know it was gonna go down this way because he did not think this through at all.

First off: Remember how in part 2 I said Buck and Eddie’s storylines were connected and how earlier I said Buck was the catalyst for Eddie like Bobby was for Buck?

Yeah, that’s the episode for all of this.

It’s not as obvious as in Season 2 because usually it happens over two episodes but it’s no coincident that after last episode Bobby triggered that shift in Buck, Eddie is now suddenly careering out of control as well - it’s because Buck is his catalyst, his *trigger*.

Please watch 3.04 and 3.05 back to back and tell me Eddie doesn’t make a 180 between those episodes. He goes from worried about his son to punching people in parking lots. What changed? Well, he could no longer talk to Buck. And Buck is his anker and his catalyst, the one person he doesn’t have to be in control with (which he really could use considering what he is going through with Christopher). And when you take that away he spirals. (Also there is the deposition where his best friend betrays him by talking about his dead for less than a year - wife, a topic Eddie has been avoiding in regards to his feelings since … well, the day it happened, probably.)

And I’m not saying the whole street fighting thing wouldn’t have happened if Eddie wasn’t such a boy scout and said, screw the chain of command and just called Buck to bail him out, but that’s what I’m implieing.

Also the scene between Eddie and Lena, I mean, I’ve already talked about it somewhere else but I do wanna point you to the way it is phrased: Eddie „wasn’t allowed“ to call Buck. Meaning he wanted to. But you know: Boy Scout.

Now, let’s talk about the grocery store fight because I have so many thoughts!

And what I love about these two episodes, as well as the next one, is that they show both the connection Buddie has as well as the contrasts between them:

One of the biggest differences in Buddie is how they deal with fear and obstacles and it is visible throughout all their lives and specifically these three episodes.

Evan Buckley is a force of nature, he is a fighter, he sets a goal and he reaches this goal with a single minded focus, steamrolling through everything in his way until he reaches said goal. Just look at the lawsuit and remember how his original plan was to get everyone to sign a letter of support for him.

When something frightens him, Buck doesn’t run away he runs right into it, tries to destroy it or be destroyed. He fights. And if that doesn’t work, he finds a way around the problem, but always going head to head with the thing because Evan Buckley is very determined and very self destructive.

Just look at the way he held onto Abby for nearly a year after she had left: Instead of dealing with his feelings of abandonment and the fact that the woman he loved left him, that boy dug his heel in and fought tooth and nail to keep what little he had left of her, of them. Refused to acknowledge being left for months. And when he finally leaves he literally compares himself to a ghost, because you know, he is just an empty shell at this point.

It’s also why he falls so hard for Ali because he is just desperately looking for something to cling to and so he transfers all those un-dealt feelings onto her and then he get’s hurt and his problems become bigger and different and Ali can’t deal - not surprising considering they had barely a foundation. They just went from 0 to 100 in 2 seconds and that just never works out, unless you’re in a very expensive sports car.

I also truly think at times Buck hides behind the loud mouthed, dumb adrenaline junkie persona he got going on as it keeps people from looking deeper, because Buck is very scared they won‘t find anything deeper - or worse, decide they don’t like what they see (and hey, he even got that confirmed by Ali leaving! and Abby! AND MOST IMPORTANTLY MADDIE!).

(Which, to push an agenda real quick, is why I ship Buddie so hard? Because they do have a foundation, they have been emotionally intimate with each other, they’ve seen the worst of each other and still went: I’m gonna have your back. And they have pulled a lot of shit on each other in the two years since meeting! Like, I’m sorry 911, I love you, but please never try and tell me they will have a deeper connection with anyone but each other because it’ll be a damn lie and you know it! If you don’t wanna do Buddie, let those boys get emotionally healthy and THEN give them an endgame but don’t try and replace Buddie with Loveinterests. I’m serious. I might stop watching!)

Eddie meanwhile is much more open with his feelings in the sense that he is less open in general so it’s far more noticeable when something is bothering him *because* he is subtle about it. Because Buck is so loud and so open and all about what you see is what you get, you don‘t assume he is hiding anything because you already see everything, right? (Always hide the real shit in plain sight, you guys, that‘s where no one remembers to look!) But Eddie, Eddie keeps his cards close. Sure he is funny and nice but he is also fucking reserved! And when something bothers him he draws into himself even more and that’s something that shows, that people will take notice of.

Eddies reaction to bad things (also known as *feelings*, because that boy is fucking repressed) happening is running away. And I am not saying he is a coward, I am saying he probably thinks he is and I am saying he runs away from his problems - that’s what 3.15 was about for Eddie: embracing his family (his vulnerabilities) and from what I‘ve seen in the last few days floating around in spoiler *now* Eddie has to learn to face his problems and not run away.

Which will be hard because Eddie deflects a lot.

It‘s funny (in a way that is not funny) that Buck, the fighter, is like the least aggressive guy around while Eddie, Mr quiet and reserved, who is all about running away from his problems, is so physically aggressive - except it is not and makes a lot of sense.

Season 3 truly shows how they deal with problems and I love it, I love them and this show so much!

Because Buck deals with the bombing by working tirelessly to come back to work, he deals with losing Christopher by nearly killing himself trying to find him and he deals with his fear of being replaced by filing the lawsuit to get his job back - which is also why I have to agree with Eddie: Buck truly has a one track mind. He sees the problem and nothing else. That makes him an amazing firefighter but an exhausting guy to be around because he does not give up.

I think in canon we only ever see Buck give up twice, maybe three times once with Abby and once with Christopher, both times he nearly killed himself first. (And one could argue that neither of these times he actually gave up, he was just out of options and time.) Tbh the only actual time he gave up was with Ali and that was probably his one track mind just not having any capacity to deal with a girlfriend on top of everything.

Eddie meanwhile deals with his wife dying and his best friend nearly dying twice and his son being traumatised and his best friend not being allowed back to work and his best friend filing that lawsuit by ... not dealing with it. He just moves on. Runs away from his feelings and his pain by fighting. He can’t deal with - can’t fight - his actual feelings so he fights something else. He lashes out. Becomes feral. That’s literally the gist of this episodes voiceover!

So tbh as much as I like that they resolved that lawsuit within one episode I am a bit bummed that we hardly saw anything of the 118 and especially Eddie without Buck there (specifically during his fighting time) mainly because I think we would have seen Hen and Chimney with Cap and Eddie maybe with Lena but generally keeping his distance, hiding away from them. (I don’t think Eddie just brushing past Buck in 3.06 was just about Buck.)

I truly meant what I said about 2.01 and Eddie taking one look at Buck being an asshole and deciding this one is gonna be his friend. Because while Hen and Chimney have been nice and friendly with him from the get go, they never give him shit the same way they give each other or Cap or Buck, and Eddie needs that. He needs someone who isn’t afraid to call him out and push back, both to get Eddie out of his own head and to make him feel comfortable enough to do the same. Which is why he bonded so fast with Buck and Lena (also, would he have bonded with her like that if Buck had been there? Probably not. Eddie is like the definition of „I only have the emotional capacity to care about three people at a time and two of them are my son“), because both held him accountable for his shit, which no one else on the show does, specifically not Hen and Chimney who treat Eddie as the guy who is good at most things so they just overlook the shitty stuff. And Cap does the same, because Eddie has a lot on his plate and Cap understands his issues better than anyone else’s.

Ya‘ll just need to watch the supermarket scene! It‘s all there!

Buck is in the store trying to create a moment so he can talk to all of them (meaning he is pushing, leaning into the problem until it gives), tries to make the problem go away by apologising (remember what I said about trying another way? Working hard didn’t work. Accepting his predicament didn‘t work. The lawsuit didn’t work. So now he tries talking it out - which he should have done to begin with, but hey, I’m not his therapist (sadly)) (It’s too bad it only worked to a certain level as we saw in the next episode but oh well, that’s actually realistic.)

Meanwhile Eddie has none of it because Eddie is currently running away from his problems so he can’t have his problem stand in front of him buying cat laxatives. So Eddie goes feral, and makes it all about Buck and his mistakes and then throws Christopher under the bus because that man is fighting for his life and he has nothing left to loose!!! I truly love this scene so much, you guys. It’s so revealing about these characters.

(I also shouldn’t have to point out that most of the stuff Eddie said to Buck was about Shannon, right? He was saying the things he was feeling about Shannon and he was throwing them at Buck because Buck was the one who brought it up, but also … look, it’s just ship-y from here all right?)

As for what I said about Hen, Bobby and Chimney in regards to Eddie? I know Chimney made some remarks but come on! Had it been any of them or Buck who yelled at someone like that they would have all interrupted and tried to diffuse the situation. But because it’s Eddie they sort of let it happen. (Also tbh because it’s Eddie and Buck and everyone is a little mad at Buck but they are something different to each other.)

Also, not to push my agenda, can we just talk about how comfortable Eddie has to be with the 118 but especially Buck, how much he has to care, to scream at him like that? Because he is reserved and he always tries to let go of his feelings and he hides so much. And I know part of it is that Eddie is coiled too tight already and about to burst but it’s also about Buck and the fact that Eddie expected better from him because Eddie has such a high opinion of him. Like sure he gives him shit sometimes but I think it’s because Eddie always expects the most of Buck (and Buck rarely lets him down). (And now I did go all ship-y)

Just compare this with his relationship with Shannon: with Shannon Eddie always is the one to make decisions, in part because he believes that’s what a man should do but also in part because he doesn’t trust her - and that was even before she left. Eddie trusts no one but himself for the most part but he does trust Buck, because to Eddie Buck can hardly do wrong. Which is why the whole law suit probably hit him so hard cause he expects everyone to let him down all the time but Evan Buckley? The guy he trust with his son more than anyone else? That guy? He expected better off! And that my friends is beautiful.

As for the voiceover it does poise one very central question for Eddie’s character: If he gives up control, will he be able to regain it? Because that is Eddie’s biggest fear and why he always holds everything so tight: he thinks if he lets the floodgates open once, he’ll never be able to close them.

In other news: Ryan took his shirt off.

Episode 3.06:

Before I write another 2400 words about our boys, I wanna remind you of that scene of Bobby, Chimney and Eddie wearing sun glasses, with Hen wearing her normal glasses, standing round, looking like an album cover! *plays „Clique“ by Kanye West, Jay-Z, Big Sean*

Do you think Athena and Hen talked about Bobby and how he would / does handle Buck? They did, didn’t they?

Also love how Hen and Chimney are super welcoming because one, they know what it’s like to be the odd one out and two, they love Buck and actually see his point of view. I believe. Now if only someone would remember to tell him.

Like, come on, they probably sit in the ambulance gossiping all the time!

I really love that we saw some bonding between Buck and Hen and Buck and Chimney in this episode because as much as I love Buddie we do not see enough of those combos (we don’t see enough of Buddie either).

Also the whole two steps forward, one step back? That is Bobby in this episode.

Now, we have to talk about the apology scene because this is Buck, expressing himself, being vulnerable. I love this episode a lot especially in regards to this Meta because here we see all the things I explained for the last episode: Buck is expressing, trying his best to make the problem go away while Eddie avoids it.

Also, you know, there is the whole illegal fighting thing that is visible on Eddie and look, if you did something like that would you willingly spent time with the one person who will call you out on it or will you avoid him like the plague? Especially if the last time you saw him you were screaming bloody murder at him in the middle of a grocery store! And the next time you see him he calls you out for your bruising. Yeah, guys, that’s just realistic.

Also bit of a reach, but the reason this is part of my discussion of 3.06 and not 3.05, which is Eddie’s relationship to Buck. Remember how 3.03 ended? That beautiful moment that made Oliver Stark cry on Instagram live? Remember how Eddie said „It’s his turn to save you now.“? Yeah, what happened to that?

Okay, Eddie is not an expressive guy. He is bad with feelings. He hates having them. And here comes Evan „Buck“ Buckley and he is just the polar opposite. Sure, he’d rather not talk about his feelings either but he has a lot of them and he *likes* having all of them and he wallows in them and that is probably a lot for a guy like Eddie to deal with. Especially when I do think Eddie understands somewhat where Buck came from and he probably feels guilty af about making Buck feel like he was being replaced. About not seeing the pain Buck was in. About not being there for him - which is why he lashes out, because guilt can make the healthiest people do horrible shit and Eddie is far from any definition of healthy at that point.

But I do have to say I am reaching with this and if I ever meet Tim Minear I will have him explain the fight scene and the apology scene to me word for word because it has to be deeper, right?

It can’t just be Eddie lashing out, and saying exactly the things he knows will hurt Buck because he is mad mad mad? Yeah, I know, whatever.

(Because even if that is the case? This is still the scene where a guy uses his best friend as a substitute to get his anger for his dead wife out in a somewhat healthy manner.)

Which is why I love both these scenes immensely, because it shows exactly how differently Eddie and Buck deal with things, because Eddie avoids them or gets mad and screams at them while Buck, actually does something fairly healthy and try to talk it out - but like only as his last option. He tries anything but talking before that, except with Eddie because they are connected and he finally *finally* lets himself be emotionally vulnerable with Eddie.

Which is also why the apology scene is so important to me, despite thinking while a bit rash, Buck wasn’t exactly wrong in his actions. I would have hated if they just brushed the grocery store over or made it about Eddie and the issues he had at the time. Instead they gave us this beautiful scene where Buck finally - FINALLY - gets to explain himself to someone, especially Eddie, the guy who he hurt the most because Buck is his anchor, and Eddie actually listens and then he gets it and he is like, oh, I wasn’t wrong! He really deserves all my trust!

So you know, that’s just beautiful, wether it’s platonic or romantic.

Episode 3.07: no relevance

Episode 3.08:

I wanna say something right of the bat that is probably controversial as hell:

Eddie did not want to share with Bobby. Eddie likes Bobby, he trusts Bobby, but he wasn’t really feeling like sharing with Bobby.

The reason Eddie talked with Bobby about all of this? Well, first of all it was bound to happen, sometimes things need to be said and then it doesn’t really matter who you’re talking to.

Also Eddie? Boy Scout. Army man. Chain of Command. If your superior officer tells you to share - you share! There. I said it. (This is not a Bobby Nash - stan account)

Also: „A friend of mine told me I needed an outlet - think I found it.“ - no, you didn’t Buddy boy, it’s why I’m currently 10.000 words into an episode by episode analysis of your character! (can you tell I am slowly going off the rails with this?)

But I do love how we finally got to see sassy!Eddie again. I missed you, babe!

As for the kitchen scene and the look, yes, I know, Maddie was looking at them like that because she just called them out about gossiping and they turned around and gossiped, buuuut … ya’ll also realise that Chimney was apparently *not* aware that anything was wrong with Eddie when Eddie had been acting weird way longer then Hen. He nearly punched Buck in a grocery store, he comes in with new bruises like 3 times a week but sure mate, he is all normal! (Or you know, Buck is just hyperfocused on Eddie)

One thing that freaks me out every time I watch this episode is how completely fucking nonchalant Eddie seems by the fact that he nearly fucking killed a guy. To quote Lena Bosko, professional plot pusher: „What the hell, Eddie?“

And then of course 3.15 happened and we saw Eddie shoot multiple people, so he probably learned how to compartmentalise and I guess I need to remember this is a TV show and no one actually died. But wow, I really need this addressed more because I have such mixed feelings about this.

And with regards to this I wanna say something even more controversial: Eddie got off easy. Yes, the guy willingly went into that ring but Eddie nearly killed him and all Bobby wanted to talk about was why Eddie was fighting? Again: What the hell?

Another thing this episode firmly proofs is that Lena is really just a poor substitute for Buck because Eddie doesn’t actually know anything about her, he just uses her as a sounding board because, well, Buck wasn’t there and he was lonely?

As for the actual conversation happening, yes, there we have it, in plain sight, Eddie needs to be in control because he thinks this is what Christopher needs him to be and as I’ve said before Eddie will always do anything for Christopher, even if he hurts himself in the process.

Also, remember when Lena told him he needed to show and tell his son how he felt so Christopher knows it’s okay to feel that way as well? Clearly didn’t stick of he would not feel this intense need to be in control. Which is realistic, you don’t just unlearn behaviour you had for like 30 years just because someone gives you some good advice once! (Man, my life could be so different!)

I’m also not a fan of Bobby’s „She died.“ because while yes, it wasn’t her fault that she left this time, grief isn’t rational. And even without the looming divorce Eddie has every right to be upset and to be angry at the world, and yes, even his dead wife. She’s dead. It doesn’t hurt her anymore. (Although that would be one feeling he should probably keep from Christopher.)

Not to mention Eddie feels guilty as hell. His anger? Mostly at himself. The sentence “I broke his mother”? Broke me as well.

But I also understand Eddie because while he may be grieving, his son is clearly traumatised by the whole situation, as seen in 3.04, and Eddie is trying his best and look, his outlet wasn’t the healthiest but um, at least he realised he needed one? He addressed that? That’s growth (sorta).

Amount of shirtless!Eddie scenes: 2, which feels a bit like overkill for one episode (pace yourself, Tim, this isn’t Game of Thrones)

Episode 3.09:

Frank! My main man Frank! Ui, I love him! When Tim calls me to come consult for Season 4 because clearly by now I am an expert on his characters and the way they should act, I will tell him to bring Frank back. I miss Frank. I hope he’s doing okay. He deserves the world. Also really wanna meet Rosemary.

And hey, as someone who has worked in the mental health sector and probably will again come October (if I manage to finish my degree by then, urgh, Corona, you are destroying my thesis!), I love that scene on the sofa so much! All of them openly sharing that they have been in therapy and talking about their therapists and just, uh, that scene makes me all tingly!

Before we get into all the emotional things I’m just gonna add the scene on the sofa to my list of scene I don’t fully understand. Like, what emotion exactly was Eddie supposed to be conveying because to me he sounds angry. And why should Eddie be angry about Buck sleeping with his therapist? What reason could he have?

Okay, yeah, maybe it’s a little exasperation and annoyance because apparently Evan Buckley is just coasting through life and doesn’t even take therapy seriously. Idk. I haven’t read the script.

But it does lead us to Buck giving Eddie shit, because, as I’ve said before, that’s what Buck does.

As for the therapy scene, yay, there is a mention of the nearly dead guy! Who is not dead. Yay!

I do love Eddie’s reasons for going to therapy and really trying, even though he is not clicking with Frank. He is such a good dad! (Also I’ve been debating for like 20 minutes whether Eddie would be more comfortable sharing with a woman or with a man and for some reason (his connection with Buck vs his relationship with Shannon) I think he’d be more comfortable with a man. Idk. I could be wrong. - Also Eddie is probably always uncomfortable talking about his feelings, so there is that!) His reasoning shows also yet again what I said about both Buck and Eddie before: they are protectors. They will make themselves vulnerable to help someone else. It’s a thing.

Also I pulled out my pocket edition of ICD-10 to check and while we don’t have enough information to give a full diagnosis, it’s safe to say that he is supposed to be going through a depressive episode. Because yes, sometimes depressed people aren’t sad, sometimes they are fucking angry.

Now, as for the Evan Buckley of it all and that scene: I read another Meta by someone clearly much better at this than me that stated Eddie uses Sarcasm as a way to deflect, which is exactly what is happening here because Eddie is not as fine with everything that happened as he pretends to be. I think he has just come to the sudden and horrible conclusion that his tipping point has been Buck no longer being in his life and so he decided it was easier to just move on then deal with his feelings (which is what got you into this mess in the first place, Edmundo, so please rethink,) if that means Buck back in his life.

I also think Eddie deflects here because he realises how much what he did and what he said actually hurt Buck in return and Eddie doesn’t fully know how to deal with that. And look, if they actually start discussing their issues then Eddie will have to admit his guilt and Eddie will have to say he’s sorry and right then he is still too pissed to do so, so he decides to move on.

Ah, the wonderful clash of Eddie thinking actions speak louder than words but Buck needing to hear the actual words.

Sidenote: I sent the kitchen scene to my roommate, stopped before they played the video game and asked her what she thinks happened next. And to quote „Love me <3 <3 <3. Please fuck me“ - because yes, she did take one look at them and decide the one with the puppy dog eyes was a bottom. That’s also a quote.

Episode 3.10:

Eddie really is trying so hard to be a good dad, isn’t he?

I also love the little head shake Eddie gives after Chris ask Buck about spending Christmas with him, because he clearly has already talked about the whole thing with Buck. And I’m not gonna talk about the framing. Other’s have done that before and I don’t actually know that much about it in first place.

Also it is cute as all hell that Chris asked Buck in the first place and also heartbreaking.

Other than that this episode doesn’t have that much of a relevance for this meta, because if I have to start discussing Buck’s other issues as well this will never be done.

Before I let you go, I wanna say something real quick:

In the past few days there have been several posts about content creators and liking vs commenting / reblogging on my dash and I just wanna say this is true for meta writers as well! Look, I love everyone who likes this because validation, but I’m not actually writing this meta for myself, I’m writing this because I have thoughts and I wanna share them with the rest of the class and have the class discuss it with me!

So please, reblog this and comment under or in the tags or come to my ask or my messages, even if it’s only to tell me that my punctuation is shit!

Anyways, @angelcamael and @greyhello here’s part 3!

#buck meta #eddie meta #buddie meta #evan buckley #eddie diaz #buck #buddie #911 meta #911 #911 fox #textpost #mine #meta #season 3 #my meta

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blindprof · 3 years

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It’s Complicated

When people first hear me say that I am blind or severely visually impaired (B/VI), the most common reaction is surprise…followed by sympathy…followed most often by awkward silence. This is totally understandable. Unless you are regularly interacting with differently abled people, disabilities are uncomfortable. I feel uncomfortable and awkward around people who live with other forms of disability.

Heck, I’m still awkward around other people who are B/VI. And even this is understandable. Because each person is unique. Each manifestation of visual impairment is unique. Each path to and with B/VI is unique. Each person has unique life experiences, coping mechanisms, support networks, etc. We are all strangers in a strange land. I’ll have other posts dedicated to the whack-a-doo personal and social psychology of B/VI. For now, the focus remains on the physical, or rather the perceptual.

The second reaction is usually a question: “How bad is it” or “What do you see?” And my answer is “It’s complicated.”

In my first post, I laid out some more technical details: I have a visual field that is less that 10 degrees, night blindness, color blindness, uncorrectable myopia, light sensitivity, etc. But it’s not apparent how these details really affect what I see and how that impacts what I can do. This post will go into greater detail into what and how I see. Later posts will focus on how I (try to, with varying levels of success, stupidity, and hilarity) cope with these limitations.

It probably makes sense to start with my visual field, as this is the aspect of my vision that “qualifies” me as legally blind. However, before getting to that, we really need a basic understanding of how humans see. Don’t worry, I’ll keep it short and simple.

It may be easiest to compare the eye to a modern digital camera. A camera lens gathers and focuses light; it also constrains the amount of light passing through by altering the size of a mechanical aperture. In the human eye, these functions are performed by the lens and the pupil, respectively. In a digital camera, the lens focus light onto a CCD or CMOS sensor, which is a dense grid of light sensitive “pixels,” each generating a small electrical charge proportional to how much light (within a certain wavelength) is hitting it. The human retina is the biological, electrochemical equivalent. Finally, a digital camera has wires that transport these electrical signals to a computer, which then interprets the signals to create a digital image. Here, the human analogues are the optic nerve and the visual cortex within the brain.

As I noted in my first post, I have Retinitis Pigmentosa (RP), which primarily impacts my retina. Due to the wonders of genetics and epigenetics, other parts are impacted. But for now, I’ll focus on the retina. Characteristically, people with RP find that their retinal “pixels”—millions of light-sensitive “rod” and “cone” structures, as well as protective retinal pigment epithelial (RPE) cells from which the disease gets its name—stop functioning from the outside in. We don’t know the exact cause, nor is there yet any proven way to slow, much less reverse the process.

Of course, this is a biological process that is unique to each individual. For me, it has progressed relatively slowly from childhood. I can recall early symptoms as far back as age 6. I’ll have a separate post at some point talking about progression. But it is notable the process is neither steady nor predictable. I’ll have periods of relative stability followed by periods of perceptible loss. It’s rarely like a light switch, but rather more like a dimmer. Each area of loss will appear darker with less usable information until it is just “clicked off” by the brain, presumably redirecting its limited processing resources to doing something other than trying to interpret shotty data from dying cells. For me, the progression has also been very spotty—for example, I retained some usable vision in the extremes of my left-right periphery until just a couple years ago, despite progressively losing most of my peripheral vision between there and my center.

The result today is that I have very little of my retina remaining that pretends to function “normally.” I can detect very high contrast light vs. dark in some of my periphery, but nothing there that you would qualify as usable sight. My central vision is still somewhat functional, but has been fading rapidly of late. As I said, it’s spotty, but on average in good light I have maybe 10-15 degrees total horizontal vision and less than 10 vertical. And much of that is probably equivalent to what most would consider to be peripheral vision. To help better “feel” what this means, here are a few examples of how this manifests itself in my day-to-day life.

When I’m sitting across a table from you, I can see your face but not your hands. If I’m not socially distant, I might be able to see your eyes or your mouth, but not both at the same time. I often creep people out during a conversation because I’m constantly losing eye contact and moving my eyes to different parts of their body. I promise, I’m not “undressing you with my eyes”—people talk with their entire bodies, and I’m simply trying to catch as many visual cues as possible.

When watching TV from 10 feet away, I can “see” my entire 55-inch screen. But less than a quarter of that is in my central vision. I have to move my eyes to see detail or read signs or captions. Sports and fast action scenes are difficult to catch. A fast action, dark scene with subtitles…oy…the Battle of Winterfell may as well have been a BBC Radio broadcast.

I can read, though usually only slowly and for short periods, especially if it is paper and ink. I see only a few words at a time, so my eyes have to constantly move. This causes a lot of eye strain, and I have trouble keeping both eyes properly oriented and occasionally have periods where one eye twitches uncontrollably—obviously I’m channeling my inner Mad-Eye Moody.

And of course, navigating unfamiliar or unpredictable environments is very difficult. I navigate by moving from waypoint to waypoint, and if I don’t know the waypoints or if things jump in my way, well, bad things happen. Or maybe funny things.

More on all of these and their many repercussions in future posts.

People ask, “What do you ‘see’ in the places where you have no vision? Is it blackness? Emptiness? Blurry?” Again, it’s complicated, but for the most part, my brain has just removed those areas from its visual processing “algorithm.” So, I see the same thing that you see when something is beyond your peripheral vision…just nothing. There are long periods of adjustment as I lose sight—kind of like losing a limb and still expecting it to be there. But eventually it’s just not a part of the picture that my brain paints of the world around me.

Unfortunately, that’s not all. Night blindness is often the first detected symptom for folks with RP. What is left of my retina doesn’t detect light well, so I need much more of it. The result is that I’m totally blind in low-light situations. I need direct light to see any kind of detail. I carry a flashlight everywhere I go and use it regularly day and night.

So, I need bright light. But it is also my nemesis. My eyes compensate like one would with a digital camera…by cranking open the aperture (pupil) and turning up the gain on the sensor. This does allow me to function semi-normally in certain situations. But it also results in severe light sensitivity. As with a camera, the wider pupil also results in loss of detail, and bright light can almost entirely wash any other visual information. To make matters even worse, although my pupils do function, they are VERY slow to adjust.

The results of all of that are varied. I’ll post more details in the future. But for example, I am no longer able to read a computer screen for any length of time without inverted colors. It’s like trying to read while staring at headlights. I truly need dark mode on all of my devices. Also, changing lighting conditions are challenging, especially when they are extreme. When I come in from outside, my eyes can take many minutes to adjust. And bright light sources like sunny windows in otherwise moderately lit environments can really cause havoc.

Finally, a common comorbidity with RP are cataracts, which cause hardening and blurring of the lens. Of course, this one hit me, as well. A number of years ago, I had cataract surgery. It was great. I was the youngest patient in the surgery center by like 30 years. The process involves using a magic wand to dissolve your natural lens and replacing it with a plastic one. This gets rid of the blurring, but entirely removes the ability to focus. As a bonus, I did go from needing coke bottle glasses to just needing a couple of diopters of correction. But this further complicates reading, and means I’m constantly donning and doffing my specs or having to look below them to read. Minor in the big scheme of things, but it does make me look and feel like a damn old fart.

Okay, if you made it this far, you deserve to be let off the hook for now. There’s more like the fact that my corneas—the eyes’ (usually) clear “lens caps”—now seem to cause my sight to remain blurry for the first couple of hours of each day. Or that the eye strain can sometimes get so physically painful that I have to close my eyes for long periods during the day. But this is a mostly complete and accurate snapshot of what I’m currently living with physically.

I guess I didn’t present too many funny or uplifting or forward-looking things in here. Truth is, you kind of have to muddle along with me through these sewers to eventually find the humor and hope in all of this. Because it’s complicated. But I’ll get there if you’re patient.

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elatedmarvel · 4 years

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After All This Time, You and I (1/4)

Summary: Bucky has known you your entire life. Snapshots through the years.

Word Count: 1948

AN: Hello! Long time no see! This is for @star-spangled-man-with-a-plan‘s Follower Celebration! Congrats to you Star, you deserve every single one!! My prompt was Best Friend’s Sibling. This was originally going to be a long oneshot, but I felt like the flow was better to separate it into a two-shot. Title is from Mary’s Song by Taylor Swift for obvious reasons. Thank you for hosting this awesome writing challenge Star! I had so much fun writing this!

Warnings: tiny mention of violence, swear words

“The building burning up Buck! You gotta get out of here!” Steve shouts staring down his best friend from across the bridge.

“No! Not without you!” comes Bucky’s fierce reply. His eyes scan over the wreck, trying to find something to save Stevie.

Steve takes a deep breath and prays that the crumbling bridge will hold a little longer, and he charges across the chasm. He almost makes it to the other side when his foot gets caught on a pillow. Tumbling over, he avoids landing on Bucky, but knocks over the unsuspecting person on his right.

You land with a thud on your hands and knees, and quickly scramble to look at your right knee. There’s a moment of silence, and the boys hold their breath waiting for the inevitable wail.

“I’m sorry!” Steve cries before wrapping his arms around you in a clumsy hug. He really didn’t see you playing next to him, it was an accident! Your bottom lip sticks out and your eyes become more and more glassy.

“Please don’t cry” he begs, partly because it breaks his heart, and partially because he doesn't want get in trouble. He knew what kind of hellfire Sarah Rogers could rain down.

“We’re sorry, what can we do to make it up to you?” Bucky asks, scooting himself to face your tear stained face. He felt bad for making Steve run across the bridge, he never meant to hurt you.

“I-I need a groom for my wedding.” you state without hesitation, wiping at your eyes. “And I can’t marry Steve cause he’s my brother, duh.” Your wet eyes turn to look intently at Bucky.

“You can’t get married, you’re 6.” Bucky tries to argue.

“So? You’re 8! That’s only 2 years older! ‘Sides, it’s not real anyway.” you fires back, your bottom lip juts out again, ready to cry if that’s what it takes.

He’s taken a back for a moment at your reply, and blue eyes meet Steve’s pleading ones. He’d do anything for you, and of course Steve was the cherry on top.

“Ok. Fine.”

On a rainy day in April, Steve walks you down the aisle.

Clad in his nicest, unstained, khaki pants, Bucky’s heart skips a beat when he sees you. You’re wearing your Cinderella costume from Halloween, and some stolen red lipstick from your mom, smiling like you got an extra juice pop. Somehow, he already knows your the prettiest girl in the world.

In front of your moms, stuffed animals and barbies, Bucky promises to always make you laugh and smile, and to protect you. You promise to always share her toys and food with him, and to make him feel better when he’s sad.

The ceremony ends after Steve pronounces you both husband and wife, and while your moms cheer and tear up slightly, Bucky leans in and gives you a quick peck on the cheek. It won’t be so bad being married to her, he thinks.

~~~

School sucked for Bucky today. Steve got into a fight with Zemo, which lead to Bucky getting in a fight with Zemo. That punk couldn’t even breathe right, it frustrated Bucky to no end that he couldn’t stop being stupid. Turns out, being punched in face hurts more than it looks in the movies. And of course, his parents weren’t thrilled and took away his TV privileges for the week, which meant he couldn’t find out what happened on his favorite show the Howling Commandos. Last week was even a cliffhanger! Captain America and the Winter Soldier were stuck on a plane with bombs on them and fast approaching Manhattan!

Wallowing, both Steve and him were relegated to “use their imaginations” and playing in the backyard. Bored out of their minds, they played hide and seek, a babies game really if you asked Bucky. But, Steve was nice enough to let Bucky hide first, and Bucky couldn’t say no to that bruised face.

So here he was, climbing the ladder to the old tree house, hoping Steve wouldn’t look here right away. Sniffles drew his attention you, crying softly in the corner with your knees to your chest. You were blasting music from your walkman, Endless Love from what Bucky could hear. It was really bad then. His chest hurt seeing your red rimmed eyes, and crawled next to you.

“Hey, what’s going on?” he asked lowly, taking her headphones off of your head and pausing the song. You didn’t look him in the eye, but leaned into him more when he put his arm around you.

“Stupid boys.” you sniffle. Wiping your face, you finally meet Bucky’s worried eyes. “Jake dumped me for Sierra, cause she always has chocolate snack packs in her lunch.”

“That weasel! Want me to rough him up a little?”

“Thanks, but I think you and Stevie are in enough trouble as it is.” you chuckle, placing your head on his shoulder. He gently rubs his hand up and down your arm, wishing he could take away your pain.

“I could pretend to be your boyfriend, make him jealous your going out with a 6th grader.” he offers.

“You can’t be my boyfriend, you’re already my husband!” you joke. His eyes go wide, remembering your lovely wedding ceremony and the massive amounts of cake you both ate at the “reception”.

“Hey! That’s right! Technically you were cheating on me with him! I want a divorce.” he jokes, bumping your shoulder with his.

You giggle and place a hand on his, “Please forgive me! It’s been so hard being separated from you now that you’re in middle school! He didn’t mean anything! Promise!”

You both erupt laughing so hard that Bucky falls over and brings you with him, which makes you both laugh even harder. Managing to calm down, he places a kiss on your forehead and hugs you closer to him. His heart does a funny dance in his chest, but he ignores it. You’re so warm against him, and your shampoo smelled so good, he could lay here with you forever.

“I guess I’ll forgive you this once, but don’t let it happen again.” he says solemnly.

You nod, hair tickling his face, “It won’t, you’re the only one for me Bucky Barnes.”

~~~

The room’s getting dark, but he couldn’t be bothered to get up and turn on the light. Not when Lional Richie was pouring his heart out. He couldn’t go down to dinner, his whole family had heard her breaking up with him. Did Dot really have to come over and break things off in the driveway? It would kill him to see the pity in his mom’s eyes, and sit through the uncomfortable talk with his dad about his feelings. He knew they were worried about him, and wanted to help, but he couldn’t stomach facing them.

They hadn’t been going out for long, but being dumped for the first time, he didn’t know how to handle his heartache. Honestly, he didn’t know if he was even heartbroken, or just wallowing in self-pity of being blindsided by the breakup.

A knock on the door brought him out of his misery. Must be his mom, bringing food up to him like the saint that she was. He stands up slowly, acutely aware of how his muscles ache from being curled in a ball for most of the day, and stretches as he makes his way to the door.

Your bright eyes stare back at him when he opens the door, and in his shock, he takes in the box of pizza you holdand the enormous bag of junk food.

“What’re you doing here?” voice cracking from underuse.

“Steve told me what happened with Dot. I brought pizza and your favorite snacks and movies. I can drop them off and leave though if you would rather be alone?” your voice hopeful that he won’t turn you away. Like he could, he’s never turned you away before and he won’t start now.

A small smile makes its way onto his face, and he opens the door wider so you can come into the bedroom. Your grin soothes the ache in his chest. You put the pizza down on his nightstand and cue up Star Wars. Getting cozy on his bed and patting the spot next to you, it seems like you fit right in. He didn’t need to be asked twice.

By 4 AM, he’s forgotten all about what’s-her-name, and his earlier self-pity and heartbreak. Not when Star Wars was playing in the background and your blinking sleepily at the TV, head on his shoulder.

~~~

“Bucky, we have a situation.” Steve announces, flopping onto Bucky’s bed. Bucky looks up from the laptop in his lap with a confused stare, waiting from Mr. Dramatic to explain. He didn’t have time for his antics, his last college final of the semester was due next week.

“Y/N’s prom date bailed on her, and it’s tomorrow.” was all Steve said, and looked at Bucky, waiting for what he knew would happen now.

“That dick.” Bucky replied, mentally searching for his tux. “If I leave now, I can make it with enough time to shower and get ready.” And he hops off the bed, grabbing his duffle bag, he stuffs whatever he may need for the impromptu trip home. Steve just stares at him with a smile on his face like the little shit he is.

A 5 hour drive home, shower, frantic search for his tux, and a quick power nap later, he knocks on your door. He wishes he could photograph the look of surprise on your face, your jaw literally drops when he see him in his tux.

“Bucky?!” And he swears he forgot how beautiful you were. Literally glowing, and he doesn't think it’s from the makeup, he can’t help himself as he takes in your dress. You’ll be the most beautiful one there, no contest. “Hey doll.” he smirks at you, still amused by your shocked state. He can tell when your brain catches up when your eyes soften as you look up at him.

“What are you doing here?” you ask in a soft voice.

“Taking you to prom, what else would I be doing?” and he can see you calculating in your head.

“Bucky, you must have driven all night!” you exclaim. Bucky loves when your eyes grow wide, it’s so cute.

“It’s fine, who needs sleep?” he says as he steps inside, past your frozen, and shocked state. Steve must have told your parents he was coming, he can see your parents waiting with the camera in the living room.

“You told me you were going to work on your final all weekend.” you fire back, closing the door.

“This is more important to me.” and he can tell you don’t quite believe him. You have a scowl on your face that reminds him of when you would catch him stealing a piece of candy as kids. He’s pretty sure you think it’s intimidating, but he finds it adorable.

“I promise that I worked on it already, and I’ll be ok.” and he presses a kiss to your forehead. “You look beautiful.” your glad your foundation hides the sudden flush of your face.

“You’re not too shabby yourself.” you tease back. But really, seeing him like this does inexplicable things to your heart. He’s so handsome, and he had driven all night to take you to prom. You could just kiss him.

Taking your hands in his, you look into his eyes. “Thank you.” you say earnestly.

And Bucky knew in that moment, he would drive days to get to you if needed.

Part 2

#bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes fanfiction #star’s multi fandom follower celebration #bucky x reader #bucky fanfiction #bucky barnes fan fiction #bucky fan fiction #bucky fluff #bucky barnes imagine #bucky imagine #marvel fan fiction #marvel fanfiction

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engineering · 5 years

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EmberConf 2019 Recap

Now that the dust has settled on EmberConf 2019, I thought I'd take some time to write up my experience and what I learned.

I (@oli) was fortunate to be invited to teach my Broccoli.js workshop this year at EmberConf 2019 during March in Portland, Oregon. I taught a similar workshop last year at the conference and received great feedback, and so of course was more than happy to come back this year with a refresher course. For those unfamiliar with Broccoli.js, it's a JavaScript build system used to compile JavaScript projects, and it makes up the build system for Ember.js. My workshop covered an introduction to how Broccoli.js works and how to integrate with it into your Ember.js application. The workshop this year was another great success with attendees leaving with skills to turbo charge their Ember.js build pipeline.

The conference

EmberConf is one of my favourite conferences, not only because I get to geek out with fellow engineers about Ember.js, but mainly due to the stellar organization by Leah Silber and the amazing EmberConf team. EmberConf places a big emphasis on inclusivity, with no space for harassing behavior or anything that makes anyone's experience unpleasant as is outlined in their code of conduct. It's great to be part of such a welcoming community and the organisers should be very proud of the atmosphere that they foster, I didn't see one unhappy face!

The night before the storm

There was a buzz in the air this year, something felt different. After speaking with Tom Dale at the speakers' dinner the night before the conference kicked off, it was hard not to feel infected by his excitement for the keynote the following morning. Tom Dale and Yehuda Katz are the parents of Ember, it was their takes on the technology of the web circa 2010 that gave birth to SproutCore and what subsequently evolved into Ember.js. From their original mantra of Stop Breaking the Web, to today's JavaScript that you wouldn't dream of writing without a compiler of sorts, Tom and Yehuda have pioneered web technologies for nearly a decade. It's for this reason that when Tom gets excited about something, it's probably worth getting excited about.

Keynote time

Conference day one rolls around, and it's keynote time, the room is packed with 1000 or so people, the lights dim and Yehuda and Tom approach the stage. As is customary for EmberConf, they start off with reiterating that EmberConf is an inclusive conference and if you feel someone looks uncomfortable to go and interject into the situation to disperse it or speak to a conference organiser. I've never seen anyone look uncomfortable at EmberConf — quite the opposite for that matter, which is fantastic.

History

Tom covers a bit of Ember's history, being 8 years old this year, and highlights how much the web has changed since Ember was released. The web has evolved so much in the last 8 years, and Ember has kept up and in a lot of cases spearheaded those changes. Ember was founded on the idea of being a framework to "Build ambitious web applications" and one of the founding values of Ember is "Climb the mountain together" (borrowed from DHH). So the mountain is "ambitious web applications" and we climb it together through shared tools, shipping features, and with big changes we move as a community. This really is a fundamental benefit of Ember, that the shared conventions, tooling, and features avoid bike-shedding over things that we as a community collectively agree on and allows Ember to focus on innovation and new ways of solving common problems in a cohesive manner.

A quick recap of some of the things that Ember has done in the past 8 years:

Things like the six-week release cycle, the RFC process, and engaging in standards and code mods have made it easy and predictable for everyone who uses Ember to upgrade as a community and benefit from all the enhancements that come with that. To that end, the Ember Community Surveys show that the majority of users are on the latest LTS or newer version of Ember.

Using the same tools is also important, Ember CLI allows everyone who uses Ember to use the same build tool, and combined with Addons allows for shared extensions to Ember and the build pipeline and allows for the community to experiment and extend Ember in predictable and collaborative ways. Due to the shared conventions anyone opening an Ember application should immediately feel at home and understand how the app is structured, how the build pipeline works, and how additional functionality can be added through shared endeavors.

Stability & Progress

Frameworks must strike a careful balance with the tension between stability and progress. On one hand we don't want to break peoples apps when they upgrade, but at the same time we don't want that to necessarily hold us back from progress, we must climb the mountain together. As such one must strike a balance between aggressive changes cause community fragmentation and cautious changes that leave Ember falling behind its competition.

During the Ember one lifecycle, lots of aggressive changes were made at the expense of leaving some users behind who were unable to upgrade. Comparatively in the 2.0 release cycle, very few major features landed with most releases saying "No new features are added in Ember core", but focused more on internal non-breaking changes to improve stability and coherence. On that note, the fact that the core team managed to ship an entirely new rendering engine under the hood without breaking existing apps, but whilst simultaneously taking advantage of new technologies and improving rendering performance of over 2x is pretty staggering. The Ember 3.0 release cycle tried to strike a balance between shipping things incrementally whilst keeping an eye on the direction of the whole system, driving towards coherence.

Coherence

Coherence is about how features and APIs interact with one another, and making commitments to stability without designing the entire future. For example it means we don't need to land all the changes to a specific programming model in a single release, we can improve the model in one so that new features can be adopted and peoples lives become easier, and finish it off in another thus rounding out the full model and making the API coherent.

An example of this is the component getter and setter model, and how to get rid of this.get('foo') and this.set('foo', 'bar') within a component and replace them with native JavaScript getters and setters this.foo and this.foo = 'bar' would have in the 2.0 series been held back by not having a good story for the setter and this make an asymmetrical and incoherent API. However in the 3.0 series the decision was made to ship the getter syntax, and continue working on the setter syntax until a good solution had been found, and when it does, symmetry was restored and the API became coherent again. So long as there is a long term goal of where we need to get to, we can get there iteratively without having to land everything at once. This strikes a balance between progress and stability.

Incoherence

The problem with this idea of intentionally making something incoherent for the sake of progress leads to the intermediary state potentially being confusing to developers. This confusion state has been termed "the pit of incoherence", it's the middle point between where we are and where we want to be.

The side effect of this is the idea of "churn", that developers have to continually upgrade their apps and adopt new models and ways of thinking, rolling with the punches if you will. So there needs to be a way to communicate to developers when a set of APIs and features have all landed and are all coherent, that documentation is ready and the set are officially supported by the core teams. Traditionally this would be done by cutting a new major release, but Ember uses major releases to signify things that have been finally removed after being deprecated instead of new features being added. This really is the idea of a major version change, signifying that change have been made without preserving backwards compatibility. What most frameworks tend to do however is bundle end of life features with new features, which makes it difficult to upgrade and developers are faced with not only features being removed, but also having to learn new paradigms for the new major version. As an attempt to solve this, Ember is introducing "Editions".

Editions

The idea is to take a snapshot of the framework as a way of signalling to all Ember developers, to all of the core teams, the Ember community and the wide JavaScript community these points of maximum coherence. Essentially "these features are all related and they all reinforce and complement one another, they've all landed, they're all polished and documented, it's a good time for you to go and adopt these features in your application".

And with that, Ember will be releasing its first "official" edition: Octane. Octane is a snapshot of the Ember framework at a given time when a set of features are cohesive and represent "the new way" of building an Ember application. These features are as follows:

Octane is a snapshot, a "peak" of coherence where the core teams have landed a bunch of great new features and now is a good time for the community to adopt them.

To find out more about Octane, checkout the offical preview website.

Roundup

I think editions is an awesome way of packaging a set of features that together for a cohesive experience, that isn't coupled to a semver major release but allows developers to adopt a complete set of changes in one go, invest in learning the "new" ways of doing things and collectively we as a community move up the mountain together.

With the release of Ember Octane, we have a bright future for the Ember project. This edition really does feel like a fundamental shift in the programming model, bringing itself up-to-date with the JavaScript wider community, whilst also ushering in awesome new features like tracked properties, something no other framework is doing as far as I can see.

I think Tom said it best at the end of the keynote:

"I got into web development in the first place because I wanted to make cool things for my friends, and I really love the web because I could write a little bit of code, save the file and instantly I got that feedback loop and I saw something happening on the screen. A little bit of code gave me something really visual and fun and interactive, and I could share it with my friends and they loved it as much as I did. I want that feeling when I'm building things at work."

And Tom is absolutely right, using Ember Octane really does have that similar feedback loop, it really does feel fun.

You can find out more about Ember Octane on the Ember.js website https://emberjs.com/editions/octane/ or watch the EmberConf keynote (and the rest of the conference) in full here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3RKLHvpUAI

I personally want to give a huge shout out to all the Ember core team members who have made this possible, bravo 👏

#ember #emberjs #engineering #javascript

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fightevilandthengetblownup · 5 years

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FIC: Snapshots of Lost Days

—

The sun was coming through the crack in the curtains, and straight across her eyes as if the world had a personal objection to her getting enough sleep after having gotten in at just after three that morning.

Groaning, Jo pulled the pillow from the other side of the bed over her head. The pillow was cold, and she found herself frowning as her hand moved blindly over the empty other side of the bed, searching and groping around in surprise at the lack of warm body beside her. Rolling back onto her back and lifting the pillow corner to blink, blearily, around for the other that had been there when she had rolled into bed that morning.

“Where is he…” Jo muttered to herself as she resettled the pillow over her head and tried to let herself lull back into sleep, stretched out as far as possible in the otherwise empty bed.

It took another ten minutes of counting sheep, reciting the simplest exorcism she knew, and humming the Harry Potter theme music in an attempt to fall back to sleep before she conceded defeat. Flinging the pillow across her face off in a huff, Jo sat up with a frown and the popping sound of her back. She blinked in surprise looking at the time on her phone - no wonder the sun hated her given that it was well past two in the afternoon - and scrubbed a hand at her dry eyes with a sigh.

Making her way to the bathroom, turning the taps of the shower onto an almost scalding heat and quickly using the toilet and brushing her teeth before jumping into the steaming water, Jo could feel the knots in her shoulders from the throw into a wall from the pissed off spirit she’d taken care of easing carefully. It took her fingers going wrinkly and the heat dying down from using almost the whole tank of hot water for her to finally get out of the shower, swiping a hand across the fogged mirror while drying off.

Wrapping herself up in her towel, Jo frowned as she left the bathroom at not even a call of greeting upon the door creaking loudly. Maybe Grey was out.

—

It had been almost twenty-four hours and he has still not returned.

At first, Jo had thought they’d just missed one another in the crossover of hunts. That he’d seen her in bed and gone on his own that morning and was just taking a little longer than usual, and had forgotten to write her a note or send her a text about it.

Around hour six as it hit almost eight at night, she had found herself sending off the first text to check where the other was. The sound of his ringtone from the bedroom, chiming through the house - the opening strum of his favourite song ringing out through the house - had made her jump at hearing it. Seeing the phone where he leaves it at night on his side of the bed where she had not noticed it before made the concern growing in her stomach turn into a heavy lead ball, weighing her down.

Hour ten had her screaming in the backyard for the demonic dog to show up, and then just screaming obscenities when he did not appear.

Hour twelve found her passing out on the bed where she’d last seen him early the previous morning, arms wrapping around his pillow and face stuffed tightly into the pillow itself, breathing in the smell of him as she finally gave into the exhaustion that such worrying drained her of.

She had woken up at hour twenty as it hit midday and he still hadn’t returned. That had prompted an attempt at reaching out to his sister with no success locating any little shadows to send as a messenger, and still no sign of the hulking black wolf. Nana had begun whining quietly and sniffing near the front door, laying down across the entry carpet and eyes fixated on the door as if waiting for him to waltz back in.

It was now reaching hour twenty-four, at four in the afternoon and she had not seen him in over thirty-seven hours when she’d first crawled into bed beside him and Jo felt faint. She couldn’t remember if she’d eaten or drank, or really done anything since she’d realised he was missing and not just busy.

—

“What do you mean he’s missing?”

“Exactly what it fucking sounds like!”

“Well that’s just stupid, my brother can’t just go missing. I’m sure that demon friend of his will know where he is.” Shada remarked offhandedly, tossing her hair over a shoulder as she stared back at her.

Jo found herself gritting her teeth as she looked at the other, biting down on a violent sounding hiss before it could really get started. “And I said he’d fucking missing!” Throwing an arm out, she gestured around the living room and mimicked a dust of smoke - “Poof! He disappeared! I’ve tried calling Amon but he’s gone too, and Grey left his phone and didn’t leave any messages of where he was going or what he was doing or what’s-”

“Cupcake, calm down, your smelling tasty with all this stress.” Shada moved quickly to her side, hands on either wrist and gently pulling her down onto the couch. Jo wasn’t entirely sure what was happening other than her head felt like it was full of cotton candy and her heart was so tightly squished with worry that there wasn’t anything else she could focus on. “What was the last thing he said to you?”

“I love you, now get to sleep?” Jo replied, eyes unfocused as she replayed the last moment she remembered him being home through her mind. It had been late, she had just gotten home and showered the hunt off of her; he had stroked her hair and wrapped an arm around her waist telling her how happy he was she was home. “We just..went to sleep.”

“Well that just seems weird, why would he be sleeping?”

“You know he lives life just like me, Shada.”

“Oh yeah, the whole human thing. Right.” The dark haired girl frowned to herself, tilting her head to either side before sighing. “Okay, maybe it is weird for him to have gone. Well, we’ll just have to go find him won’t we? Don’t you worry your little head about it, Cupcake, I’ll find brother and bring him home in no time!”

Jo wished she had the same confidence as the shadow as Shada stood up with a flourish and a flap of her skirt before disappearing. If only she could believe the other would find him sooner rather than later.

—

“Can you find him?” She hissed the words out, hands fisted tightly into the jacket lapels, brown eyes wide and desperate as she stared up at him. Jo chewed on her bottom lip at the impassive and almost bored look on the other’s face, knowing this was definitely not something he would want to do.

There was a shrug of a shoulder in response, and a disinterested push of his hands at her grip, trying to release himself from her grip.

Jo held of tighter, and even shook him a little through the hold on his jacket before pleading, “Please, please, I’ll… I’ll do anythin’. Please. If you can find him, I’ll do whatever - whatever - you want.”

She saw a flash of curiosity followed by the briefest flash of a pained look, before his mouth twisted into the cruel smirk she knew so well. It wasn’t at her, she could tell, but that didn’t stop the shudder running down her back as his hand moved to stroked at the unblemished side of her neck.

“Really, sweetie? You’d do whatever I want?” Gray asked in a harsh sounding whisper, fingers stroking her neck and then applying the smallest amount of pressure, eyes fixed on hers, the curiosity shining through the dark blue. Jo so wished they were the light blue ones she missed more than anything. “If I help with this little search party, you’d do anything I ask of you?”

“Yes, Gray, absolutely.” Jo nodded her head in agreement, eyes darting back and forth between each of his, trying to see if she could read his intent in them. Whether or not he would actually help her, or was just playing a game with her right now.

The shadow smirked wider, though the cruel edge seemed to fade behind real interest in it. “You’d hurt someone?” He blinked slightly at her nod, continuing, “What about kill someone, sweetie?” This time the smirk seemed to twitch slightly towards a frown for the merest moment at her nod, before his thumb rubbed against her jawline, tilting her head back up to his. Leaning in closer, Gray asked quietly, “What about something we’d both enjoy, huh? Would you submit to me, sweetie, get back into bed, or a table, or on top that bar of yours?”

“Yes, anything if you’d just find him.” Jo begged again, leaning up into him with her eyes still firmly fixed on his face and her own looks not having shifted once from the desperation written clear across her face the whole time. Not a single one of his suggestions had made her pause or flinch back, and Jo could only just keep the tears from prickling at her eyes on the off case it made him say no.

His hand moved, thumb moving to swipe across her bottom lip for a brief second before Gray dropped his hand back to his side with an unreadable look on his face.

“I’ll help you sweetie, but don’t… don’t think I’ll be cashing in any time on it.” Gray spoke quietly, hands tucked into his suit pant pockets as he looked at her inscruitably. “You know me, I like a bit of fight in you. Better to help out without ruining the fun later, huh?”

Jo felt the tears start at his agreement as he disappeared, but all she could feel was the slight throb of pain that maybe even he couldn’t find his brother, no matter how attuned to one another they were.

—

“Nobody has got any clue, Jo. You need to face the fact he might have gotten take-”

“Dean, shut your goddamn mouth you idjit.” Bobby snarled the words as Jo’s eyes had trailed over towards the other hunter, wide and brown and unseeing at the suggestion of what he had been suggesting. Bobby gave a glare towards the younger hunter and jerked his head towards the kitchen sharply as he moved to remove his cap. “How about you and your brother go suss out the kitchen situation, get some sandwiches or something together while Jo and I have a little talk, huh.”

“Sure thing, Bobby.” Sam replied softly as he passed by the back of the couch, dragging his brother out of the room after him with a large hand dragging the other by his shirt back. Jo thought she heard Dean make an objecting noise, but it all sounded like nothing after the suggestion that had come out of the other’s mouth. He might have gotten taken out.

“Don’t mind him, Jo.” The hunter’s voice was gruff as he held out a hand to her. “Now, we need something importantly and intrinsically tied to the both of you for a focus.”

Jo blinked for a second at the request as she could hear Sam and Dean shuffling in the kitchen before she twisted the ring off her middle finger. Placing it in the other’s hand, she bit her lip and rubbed her thumb over the empty space where it usually sat, feeling naked and raw without it.

“And you’re sure this spell will work?” She asked nervously, eyes on the tall contraption on the table and the swinging pendulum above the map of the country as Bobby fiddled with fitting the ring - the gift she’d gotten and never taken off since - onto the eye of the piece. “It’s not some weird hockem is it?”

“We managed to locate Lilith with it down to the street back when we were dealing with Dean and his fucking deal back in the day,” Bobby replied as he got the piece in place and set the pendulum swinging. “If it can track her, it can track one wayward shadow.”

Jo let out a sigh of relief as the pointer swung, that even Lilith couldn’t hide from it settled her nerves for sure.

That was until the pendulum began swinging faster and faster, around and around in an erratic and frantic way, before it caught alight and began to burn.

Shrieking, Jo’s hand went straight for the ring fastened at the top where the flames were starting to lick at the silver metal, fingers burning painfully as she fought to tear her ring out of it.

The next second the entire device was covered in water, the flames extinguished as Sam and Dean both threw pots of water over it and saturated the map beneath. Bobby too had a blanket in hand, ready to smother any flames that cropped up.

As the other three began discussing how on earth that could have happened, Jo continued to work and work at the small ring before she finally pulled it free.

It was a melted disc, beyond repair, and she felt a little bit of that last resistance to the idea she’d lost him for good melt with it.

—

“Well hello, you wanted to make a deal?”

“No you red eyed whore, I want you to scurry on back down there and get me your boss.” Jo snarled back at the dark haired demon that had appeared behind her at the corner of the crossroads. All the crossroads girls seemed to pick much the same bodies, and Jo almost thought she should ask one day if the black dresses were a uniform or just a factor of their uninspired group-think. “And you can tell Crowley if he leaves me waiting too long, I’ll be summoning him directly and be a lot less nice ‘bout it.”

The demon have her an annoyed look before she disappeared in a blink, and Jo fiddled with her one remaining item around her neck, gripping the ornate pendant tightly in her fist.

“Joanna. To what do I owe the pain?” The Scottish accent behind her made her jump, spinning to look at the newly arrived demon with none of the animosity she should have usually felt towards him.

“Is he with you?”

“I’m afraid you’ll have to be a little clearer, darling, is who with me?” Crowley cocked a brow at her as he stepped closer, the slight wariness to his approach would usually have amused her but all Jo felt was exhausted and at the last of her options.

“Do you have Grey, Crowley?” She shuffled her feet slightly, worrying her lip between her teeth as she looked across at the growing smug look to his face. Maybe this last option was the one from the way Crowley was behaving. “If he is, can you just tell me. I just want to know where he is, I just want to know he’s okay… Please, just tell me if you have him and that he’s not just gone.”

She could feel the tears starting, something she’d been struggling with as the days and weeks had dragged on and each person she called upon came up short. Shada had no idea, Gray had popped by once to say he couldn’t find him. Bobby’s pendulum spell had backfired horrifically, and even Amon just whined at her sadly each time she had seen him pass by. The idea that he might have been gone, might have gotten caught by a hunter or something that could over power him had been gnawing at her, chewing away at her resolve, and Crowley was her last bet that the absolute worst might not have happened to him.

There was a long pause before the demon responded, the crunching noise of gravel under his feet as he approached her. “I don’t have him. I wasn’t aware he’d run off and left you behind.”

That was it.

Jo felt the strength fall out of her alongside the tears at his words, her knees buckling and body dropping downwards towards the ground as her resolve crumbled.

She didn’t hit ground however, as two arms caught her around the middle tightly. It was so strange to not feel gravel against her cheek or the thud of the impact on her backside but instead the dreading grip around her waist before a shift found her laid down in the soft grass to the side of the road.

“What is all this about, Jo?” There was a weird look on the demon’s face. One Jo vaguely remembered from an age ago, and it stuck with her now as she felt the floodgates break and all she could do was sob against the soft texture of an expensive suit.

—

He was back.

She didn’t know how, or where he’d been or why he was back to her now. But all she knew was that he was back and in her arms.

The next few weeks were spent wrapped up in one another, never letting him out of sight and each of them recovering from the time apart in their own ways.

He didn’t speak at all about where he had been or what he’d been doing, but it didn’t matter to her why he’d left just that he was back. Jo had been helpless the last weeks before he returned, the clawing feeling that he had been taken from her by something she couldn’t talk her way out of, so really only the fact he was home was all she needed.

That was the case until the knock on the front door, the shattering of glass and the swollen stomach hidden beneath pink fabric.

From then on, the reason behind his disappearance had been the only thing she could think of any time something reminded of her once he’d left again. That while she’d been frantically calling for their friends to search across the globe for him, he had been caught in a twisted game of Happy Homes. That while she’d been begging for help from his brother, he’d been subjected to whatever sick machinations of the first demon’s dark imagination. And that while she had sobbed into the chest of the one person she couldn’t stand - thinking that he’d been taken from her and was left to rot in the place she knew he hated more than anywhere - that he had been impregnating the disgusting, white eyed bitch.

And that now, he had gone back to that nightmare under his own volition and left her behind again.

—

The house was getting dusty by now.

She’d barely made it back to the place in the last month after pulling herself out of the week long funk at her loss again. Jo had left the house a week to the dot of the blonde, white-eyed demon showing up and his final goodbye to her, and had not been back since. Nana had piled into the car with her but after the second hunt, she had dropped by Bobby and found him well enough to take care of the fluffy fur-ball rather than the unfairness of taking her around with her everywhere.

After a rather rough rugaru case, she’d returned to the salvage yard, said her hello’s and then taken the road back home with the dog’s head sticking out the window in the passenger seat beside her.

As they’d entered the space, she’d not been surprised by the slightly musty smell to the air inside but she was surprised by how excited her baby was upon running back through the building. That was up until the whining started again, the Bernese Mountain dog snuffling her way through every room in the house with a low whine before settling by the front door for her vigil again.

Jo had found herself doing her own version of the same - putting her gear away, hovering slightly near the spare bedroom where his sketch pads and art work still laid about as he had left them, before sinking into the couch with a beer like she hadn’t before he’d left and flicking open her laptop to search up for signs, omens and traceable factors of the first demon’s presence on earth. She stayed up until the sun rose, she drank her way through two six packs and found herself waking up with her face pressed tightly into the couch pillows and the sad, heavy thump of her baby’s tail against the entry floor still waiting for the other to come home.

—

It wasn’t at all expected when it had first happened after a werewolf case in Louisiana, and then it was just as unexpected two weeks later after an exorcism in Texas. By the third time just two weeks after that once they’d flushed out and taken care of a vampire nest in New York - it was no longer unexpected and had become more of a planned occasion.

Jo hadn’t really meant to fall into bed with the other ever, but after a few months without and as she’d patched up a scratch across his chest after that werewolf lashed out in it’s dying throws; things had just happened. One minute she’d been smoothing antiseptic over the scratches, and the next his lips had been on her neck and her top had been removed seconds later to match him.

From there, it had been a simple pattern to fall into between the two of them - one or the other would send a message about some hunt every other week, and as soon as whatever it was had been taken care of their lips and hands would be on one another until they made it back to whatever hotel room they’d spent the last few days in focused on work, and put that all behind them. It was a nice fit for the both of them; it might not have made her heart swell like her previous partner, but it was easy and took care of keeping the dark at bay.

—

“Sweetie, what are you doing out here so late at night?”

“Oh fuck off you dick.” Jo had returned with a laugh, swatting a hand out at the other as she turned about to grab a beer for the other patron next to him had asked for before she raised an eyebrow at the shadow leaning comfortably against the bar top without a care in the world. “When I’m not out on a hunt, I’m filling a space here of course.”

“That seems about right.” Gray smirked slightly at her, though she could see even in the dim lighting something to his look that seemed searching rather than his normally surface level glances. “How much you been out hunting then? How’s your little mutt going being left alone so much?”

“She goes to Bobby en route, and even Harry has dogsat lately actually.”

“Ah, that would explain it.”

“What ‘bout you? Just reminding you we don’t have a deal any more since you didn’t end up helping out though.” Jo grinned a little wickedly across at him as she saw out of the corner of her eye the few remaining stragglers leaving the bar with a wave. She grabbed a glass before raising a brow at him, hand holding up the closest bottle near her of a bourbon bottle.

He waved a hand in response at her, and appeared to stare into the dark drink pensively for a second before setting it down on the bar top, disappearing and reappearing behind her back as Jo turned to start cleaning up the bar itself. “Hey sweetie, this remind you of anything?”

“Ummm…” She span about looking up at him as his arms caged and crowded her in against the edge of the bar before the memory clicked. “You’re not going to set me on fire this time, are you?”

“Only if you ask nicely.” Jo barely held back the responding smile at his smirking down at her as he spoke. “But no, I don’t think I’d like to set you alight again, sweetie.”

“Oh good. I’ve still got the odd scar from that time so I’d rather not get more.”

“Do you now?” There was a curiosity to his tone then, and, almost in sync, Jo bounced up on the balls of her feet as he moved to grab her waist and deposit her up on the bar itself before his fists curled onto the surface beside her thighs. There was a quiet pause before he spoke again, head tilted down towards her with a thoughtful look she wasn’t used to on his face. “You still hung up on him?”

“What?”

“Are you still hung up on him, Jo?”

In response, she twisted slightly and downed the glass of bourbon rather than answer.

—

“Hey, meet me at mine?”

“Really?”

“Yeah, if you’re in the area, come stop by.”

The knock had come within three hours, his having been just two towns over and on his way to the city anyway.

It felt wrong in a way as Jo’d pushed the dog out of the way from the door at the sound and the way that Nana had gotten so exceptionally excited at the prospect that it might have been him at the door to open it up and drag the other in by the hand. The dog’s enthusiasm disappeared immediately, and she heard her make a snuffled noise before turning and heading to stare at the back kitchen door instead.

“Is it.. I’ve never been invited here before.”

“I know, but it’s my house now so… Come with me.”

They’d beat the path up the stairs together - much the same way as she had on so many occasions with the other, lips on one another and hands tugging on clothing, discarded where it was pushed or tugged off on their way up the stairs, down the small landing and into the bedroom.

He’d covered her in kisses then in a way he hadn’t before, and it had been far less hectic and rushed than the past times. It was like being in that bed rather than a hotel or whatever surfaces had been closest made all the difference between them, shifting things in such a way that it wasn’t just the emotionless fucking they’d done before now.

As he’d moved into her and held his weight above her carefully, cautious not to crush her with the size difference as she was spread across the bed, hips high and backside up as he entered from behind. Jo had pressed her face into the sheets and found her eyes watering as they moved together, the faint smell of charcoal and that cologne still hanging about after so long making her cry out, fists tugging at the sheets. It had hurt, hurt so hard as they screwed, and she’d pushed him out of the bed as soon as they were done with the promise to catch up with him on the next hunt the week after like had been planned anyway.

That had been the first night in six months she’d cried herself to sleep, and it was the one and only time she’d heard from him with a short, painful call that had started it all.

She didn’t ask William to meet her at the house again after that. It was, however, the first of every night spent falling to sleep in the same way since then knowing that now? He wasn’t coming home to her, it wasn’t he was being kept from her. He just didn’t want to come back for her.

—

Things had continued as such until she’d been greeted by the blonde demon with the simple words - “She found him” - breaking through the cloud of disinterest, disassociation and denial she had been living in.

Entering the room, Jo had realised that as much as she’d been tearing herself apart at the very seams, destroying ever part of herself that had been previously rebuilt by the sobbing monster in front of her - nothing was to the same level that had befallen him. And she couldn’t begin to think about how to start fixing it this time.

—

#kidverse fic #AU stories #CA #jopov

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