#also also he does not break eye contact with paul for a second except when smiling at geo

[aggressive-positivity-network]

Do you have any autistic Scout headcanons? :P

Hell yeah!

I’ve actually thought about this a lot. A lot of people might think that Scout has ADHD, but I think he either has both ADHD and autism or just autism.

This is both because labeling Scout as having just ADHD is kind of a low-hanging fruit, and I also want to explore his symptoms a little more. So, in a word, I do, and thank you for asking about them!

*****************

Scout’s Spectrum:

So, where exactly does Scout fall on the autism spectrum?

First of all, he probably has both ADHD and autism, but wasn’t diagnosed with the latter until much later. This means that some of his symptoms were taken into account, but not all.

The ones that were paid attention to ramped up out of control, and the ones he didn’t hear about were stuffed away.

His ADHD symptoms include impulsiveness, need for stimulation, hyperfixations, forgetfulness, and insomnia; his autism symptoms include trouble with social skills, stimming, near inability to remember names and faces, lack of eye contact, hyperfixations again, and sensory processing issues, especially with noise and touch.

He used to have a lot of meltdowns when he was younger, usually about wearing new clothes and the amount of noise his eight brothers generated.

However, he was teased and pushed into masking nearly all the time, and made his whole personality about his ADHD, since that was what everyone accepted.

As he got older, he usually wrote off any autistic tendencies as either his ADHD or just “little habits” of his.

During his middle school years, he used energy drinks to bounce back from being exhausted every day after school. This would work, except those energy drinks would upset his ADHD, and would make it much harder to focus on even basic conversation.

After a while, he got such bad grades and had such a hard time making friends that Scout just stopped going to school altogether.

Baseball helped his focus, and the quick movement and thinking made a lot of sense to him. He never had to wait very long for the next development, and the instant gratification and community it provided supplemented what he never got at school.

With sports on his side, he rarely ever drank any energy drinks (the coach would never let them on the field), and he drank bucketfuls of water during every meet and game. Those teenage years were probably the healthiest he ever was.

However, with the amount of rumbles he got into with his brothers, and the turf wars that constantly raged in those neighborhoods, it was only a matter of time before his crime caught up with him.

After his first incarceration, he was booted from the team, which led to a downward spiral of unhealthy coping mechanisms - which included fighting someone tooth and nail whenever he could.

Even if he lost the fight, it not only catered to his impulsive nature and impatience, but also gave him roughly the same sense of friendship and camaraderie that baseball had.

One thing led to another, and by the time Mann Co. found him, Scout was a monster in hand to hand (and bat to bat) and had racked up quite the criminal record.

A perfect mercenary, ripe for the picking.

On The Team:

Scout very quickly adopted the “stupid, scrappy Boston boy” persona.

It was the only thing that made sense, and it kept him from having to try too hard in both the battlefield and socially.

Besides, that meant that he could be as silly, forgetful, and fidgety as he wanted, and no one would bat an eye.

And if he ever needed to take a break from the team, he figured everyone would appreciate the quiet.

The only thing that ever gave him away was him occasionally dissociating right when battle began, especially if the day had been stressful.

It was usually how he calmed down after a fight when he was young, but now he sometimes slid into that state when he was overwhelmed.

However, a yell from one of his teammates would usually snap him out of it.

Medic noticed this pretty early on, and wanted to look more into it, but Scout would keep making excuses not to get a mental examination.

He would blame it on zoning out, being tired, drinking too many Bonks - whatever it took for people to stop asking.

And, eventually, they did.

Even Medic stopped asking after a while - he couldn’t get a thing out of Scout.

This “try so little that when you do try it’s above average” charade worked for a long time. In fact, it went on for so long that Scout forgot how much he was actually capable of.

He began to internalize the stupidity, the exacerbation, the many comments on how dumb he was, everything.

The only time he ever gave his all was on the battlefield - moving fast, memorizing strategies, doing complicated footwork, knowing exactly how much force it took to crush someone’s skull with his bat.

That was one of the only things that he felt good doing, the only thing he could really work on without him being “found out.”

That and drawing, though he never showed the actual pieces to anyone. It was all stick figures and crooked lines with everyone else.

Sometimes, though, Scout wouldn’t be paying attention and he’d let something slip.

One time, Engineer was looking for his screwdriver, and couldn’t seem to find it anywhere.

Scout, not looking up from his comic, said, “Under the couch cushion, hard hat.”

Engineer bent down and reached into the couch, and his hand came back with his red and yellow striped screwdriver.

“Well I’ll be damned…”

At first Engineer thought Scout had just hid it, but Scout explained, still not paying attention:

“Last time we went out on th’ field, you had it on your belt, like always. But I was walkin’ by your workshop, you were usin’ a quarter to tighten a screw or somethin’. Your screwdriver had to be somewhere between the battlefield and your workshop. Engie, you’re like freakin’ clockwork. Every day, after a fight, you go to the kitchen, get a water, go to that couch, between the second and third cushion from the left, and sit there. Then ya go back to the fridge to get lunch and a beer, and ya go to your workshop until somebody needs you for somethin’. Your back loop in your tool belt is looser than all the others, ‘cause the screwdriver pulls against it when you sit down. The shank was probably in between the two cushions, and when you got up, it fell in. Demo, Pyro, and Heavy all sit on the second or third cushion at some point, so it got shimmied down. And since that’s the only time you sat down, ‘cause you woulda heard it if it dropped on the floor, and I…uh…”

“I’ll be damned,” Engie repeated, and felt the back tool belt loop. It was indeed loose.

Scout finally looked up, and realized what had happened.

“Uh, uh - l-lucky guess, huh Engie?”

Engineer squinted behind his goggles. “Yeah…real lucky…”

What ensued was Engie trying to get Scout to turn into a B.L.U Spy by chasing him around with his wrench. After a few good hits, though, Engineer saw that it was the teammate he knew and loved.

“But…how didja…?”

Scout threw his hand up, the other rubbing the back of his head where he’d been hit.

“I toldja Engie! Lucky guess! Jesus!”

Ever since then, Scout chose his words more carefully.

The Breakdown:

But, unfortunately, Scout could not pretend forever.

There was one week where Scout’s assignment count was so high that, if he wasn’t in a fight, he was on a mission.

Usually, Pauling wouldn’t trust him with so much, but no one else was available - or willing - to do the jobs.

Even when she was getting concerned about the amount of hours Scout was putting in, he blew it off.

“It’s no sweat, Miss Pauling! Their practically givin’ me the pay day. Those yahoos don’t know who they’re messin’ with.”

Over time, though, Scout had a harder and harder time staying focused and alert.

He’d sleep through alarms, stare off into space, zone out completely during briefing (not that he didn’t already do that), have a hard time hearing people in battle - even through his headset - ignore Spy’s taunts, and even forget to bring his bat onto the field.

Nothing seemed to help - Bonk!, warming up, stretching, cold showers, setting reminders, nothing.

And the team was starting to notice.

At first it was with the regular frustration - maybe Scout was just being lazy.

But as time went on, and his condition grew worse, their scorn turned into worry. They implored Medic to do something, but he had no way of getting through to Scout.

The doctor wasn’t above simply sedating him and dragging him into his lab for a check-up. However, he had a feeling that this was more than a physical issue.

The worst came when Scout was doing a routine battle with the B.L.U team on the field.

Everything had started out okay - he even remembered to bring his bad this time - but suddenly, everything was ear-splittingly loud.

He couldn’t focus on more than one sound at once, much less communicate the best course of action to his teammates.

He ended up hiding in a dilapidated shed, in a dusty, dark corner, somewhere between zoning out and panicking.

Scout’s head was in his knees, he was shaking, close to crying, when a sudden splitting of wood roused him.

A B.L.U Soldier had kicked his way into the shed, either having heard Scout or to hide from the other team.

Scout was stunned at first, but something of a blind terror filled him. He picked up his bat, screamed, and started pummeling the surprised Soldier.

At some point, he threw aside his bat and began to swing punch after punch, just like he did in his gang days when he had felt overwhelmed. Still screaming. Still crying.

By the time Scout had dissolved into a rocking, sobbing mess, the Soldier was long dead, with a gigantic pool of blood staining Scout’s shoes.

No one even knew where Scout was until a few hours later, when Spy heard a faint note of “Sexbomb” coming from Scout’s Walkman.

Scout had crawled into the shed’s framework, between the outer and inner wall, and was playing a specific verse over and over and over again, looking like he was on another plane of existence.

Spy immediately called for Medic, who had to lift Scout out by the underarms through a jagged hole in the side of the building. By then, the fight was over, so they could take him directly to the lab.

Medic’s Evaluation:

“I’m guessing zhis is your first mental breakdown?”

“Mental…doc, I ain’t crazy. Wait, you’re not goin’ to put me in a straight jacket, are ya?”

“If you’re not doing anyzhing later.”

Medic started to laugh, but quickly realized this might not be the time.

“No, Scout, everyvun has a mental breakdown at least vunce in their lives. It’s a…how do you say…a vake-up call of sorts. Vhen your body has no other options left.”

“Whaddya mean?”

“For zhe past few months, you health, both physical and mental, has been deteriorating. You eat less. You talk less. Your attacks are lackluster. You have bags under your eyes. You flinch vhen somevun yells for you. You stare off into space. Your routine, vhich usually has at least some changes, has become stringent, as if you can’t possibly expend any more energy into extra activities. You have avoided Demoman on zhe battlefield, even though you usually use him for cover.”

Medic flipped through his notes.

“I have pages and pages of your decline. However, as a scientist, I believe it is caused by zhe same source. And, though I usually respect my patient’s right to privacy vhen it comes to these sorts of matters, I believe you’ve been keeping something from me. Something that I should know as your general practitioner…your doctor.”

Scout shrugged, already shutting out the conversation.

Medic sighed.

“Maybe I tried to talk to you about zhis too soon. After all, you’ve just had a very sudden and exhausting episode. But…perhaps…”

Medic took a sheet of printer paper from his clipboard and a spare pen from his pocket.

“…zhere is an alternative.”

Scout was still unresponsive, but Medic continued.

“Zhere is a patient in my vaiting room vis a metal pole through the chest. It vill take me at least an hour to properly remove it, and a few minutes more to heal zhe area. Vhile I do zhat, vhy don’t you draw how you feel?”

Medic smiled.

“I know how much it grounds you.”

It wasn’t until Medic left that Scout actually picked up the pen, but he began drawing immediately.

For the first time in a while, he wasn’t trying to hide his strokes or scratch up the cleaner lines. No more stick figures. No more pretending.

Five minutes later, he was fully engrossed.

Medic started to walk in at one point, but, seeing how relaxed Scout was, decided to give him a few more minutes.

He deserved it.

#tf2 #tf2 scout #scout tf2 #tf2 headcanons #headcanon requests #tf2 mercs #autism #autistic community #autistic culture #red team #blu team #valve games

[tiptapricot]

tipstie PLEASE tell me about tlb turning human/ human AU

Absolutely my dudes 👁👁 (this is also all hcs about how vampire rules work so just go with it)

So for me a human TLB AU isn’t one where they die and turn human, it’s one where Max is killed after being found out one way or another before any altercation with the boys happens, and they revert back to humans as a result

The reason this happens is because all the boys were sired by Max, and while they are technically full vampires, they aren’t independent vampires

Sires act as a sort of guardian to the vampires they turn, watching over them and guiding them until they believe they’re ready to take care of themselves

This is why they have a certain level of control, influence, and power over the vampires they turn, they have a bond

When sires think the vampires they’ve turned are ready to make it on their own, they sever that bond with a ritual that relinquishes complete autonomy to their vampires

But Max never did this

He wanted a family, and families have to stick together, so until his death he still clung to that small sliver of control over the boys, and that last step to complete and independent vampirism remained incomplete

And so, when Max is killed, there’s a sort of backlash, a glitch

The bond is broken, but broken wrong, and the small piece of the boys that’s still human, the piece that still remains deep down, starts clawing it’s way out

It hits Marko first, since was turned most recently, chills and fever and body wracking pain, like his body is eating itself from the inside out

It’s nothing like any of them have ever seen or heard of before, and they don’t know what to do but sit with him and try to lessen the fever

Paul follows a few hours later, exactly the same, and Dwayne helps David carry the two of them a little over halfway to the Emerson house before he collapses too

David gets them the rest of the way there, feeling worse and worse the longer he goes

He knocks on the door and Michael opens it, and David only manages a raspy “Need your help, Michael,” before he’s pitching forward into his arms

The next week or so is a blur

Michael convinces Lucy and Grandpa to help, and for Sam to keep the Frogs away while they figure out what’s going on

Star calls that night, and says she and Laddie were out when they felt themselves change back, and that she didn’t wait to find out why

She caught a bus to her cousin’s place in LA and took Laddie with her, but wanted to make sure Michael was ok

He says he’s fine, and promises to call again with more details, since “it’s a little hard to explain right now” and they hang up with plans to talk that weekend

Meanwhile the boys are going in and out of feverish half awake states, never lucid enough to do anything except drink water and groan. The Emersons take care of them in shifts, and Michael helps Grandpa research what might be happening to them. They don’t find a lot

Marko is the first to come out of it, after about three days

He’s groggy and confused, waking up to Lucy wiping his forehead with a damp towel

She gives him something to drink and helps him sit up, but there’s something... wrong

There’s a weight in his chest, a thrumming, heavy heartbeat, expanding lungs, heat

He’s breathing again, he’s alive again

He’s human

Paul wakes up in the middle of that night, to Michael in the room this time. After getting the general “you’re human but we don’t know why” pitch, he’s taken to a guest bedroom where he finds Marko curled up on the bed. He slides in behind him and pulls him close, and he knows Marko isn’t asleep because he can feel him shaking

Marko’s always been good at crying quietly

Paul’s pretty personable as they wait for David and Dwayne to wake up. He talks with the family and reads comics on the living room couch, and fetches food and stuff for Marko, who’s basically refusing to leave the guest room

Being back in a human body is bringing back too many memories for him of the shitty life he escaped from, and he’s having a hard time dealing with it

But Paul is there, and the Emersons are alright, and he’s eventually able to be coaxed out to have an actual meals with the family, and that’s nice too

Dwayne wakes up the Saturday after the boys first arrive, in one of the rare times no one was in the room to keep an eye on him and David

He interrupts breakfast by barreling into the living room looking extremely lost and worried, and shakily rushes over to pull Paul and Marko into a hug when he sees them staring wide eyed at him from the table

“Couldn’t hear you...” he mumbles into Marko’s hair. “Can’t hear either of you anymore...”

Lucy has him join them at the table and gets him his own plate of food, and they explain what they know. It still isn’t a lot, but it does give him a reason as to why the mental link the boys had is gone

The following days are strangely quiet. Michael and Lucy help the boys adjust, reminding them to eat and helping them when they forget they don’t have super strength or magic healing

The boys start talking more too, mostly out of necessity since they can’t communicate mentally anymore (which Marko thinks is extremely annoying) but also because life in the Emerson house is... surprisingly comfortable

Michael explains the whole thing to Star over the phone, and after a moment she laughs

“Maybe they needed this,” she tells him, “maybe this is good.”

A week and a half after the boys arrive, two things happen: David finally wakes up, and the Frogs find out who the mysterious house guests Sammy’s been keeping them away from are

David comes to in a dim room, with Michael dozing against the wall

He grunts and pushes himself up, and only just registers the heat of his own blood and the scratch of breathing in the back of his throat when there’s a commotion from somewhere outside

Michael wakes up with a slight flinch, rubbing a hand over his face, and makes eye contact with David right as the door slams open and Dwayne, Marko, and Paul come rushing in, followed quickly by the Frog brothers and a frantic Sam

It takes a bit of explaining, but they eventually come to an understanding

The Frogs are still a bit hesitant to believe the boys are human, but it’s not like real vampires could walk in the sunlight or show up in the hall mirror, so that’s good enough for them

The boys continue living with the Emersons after that

They find ways to help out here and there, with cleaning or dinner or dishes or farm work

Sleep schedules become basically non existent as well, and it’s a common occurrence to find at least one person up at all hours of the night

Each of the boys has... a moment or two, where it really settles in that they’re human again

For Marko, it’s when he pokes himself while trying to resew one of his patches. He hisses when he pricks his thumb, and when the blood beads up on the pad of his finger he just... stares at it. It doesn’t heal right away, and he can’t even smell it. He sucks on it to try and make it go away, and tasting blood again, when it no longer has the same rush or necessity, makes him cringe. He puts a band aid on it, and doesn’t mention it to anyone.

For Paul, it’s when he goes to a concert on the beach. He manages to get lost in the music, in the crowd, in the loud drums and the guitar riffs and the warm press of bodies and the intoxicating energy, and he doesn’t, not once, think about sinking his teeth into anyone around him. He only realizes about halfway through the second song that he’s actually hearing the music, too, instead of it just being the background noise for a cacophony of heartbeats. He goes home that night drunk on sound and life, and doesn’t know if he’s ever been happier in his life.

For Dwayne, it’s when he has his first cup of hot chocolate after turning back. It’s at the beginning of winter, and everyone is crammed together on the couch to break in the TV that Sam finally convinced Grandpa and Lucy to get. Michael and Sam are bickering about what movie to watch, Paul and Marko are having an animated conversation with the Frogs from their place on the floor, and Lucy and grandpa are laughing about something in the kitchen. They come out a bit later with snacks and drinks, and Dwayne is handed a big mug of cocoa with a heaping helping of whipped cream and marshmallows. He takes a sip without really thinking, and then stops. There’s a moment, when he just feels the warmth spread through his chest and belly, and then all at once it’s like he’s hit with this wave of emotions he can’t quite place, familiarity and relief and joy, and there are tears mixing with his whipped cream mustache. The movie is good, but the cocoa is definitely better.

For David, the first time is when he goes outside after waking up. He’d seen the sunlight through the windows, and knew it didn’t hurt him anymore, but feeling it, actually smelling the fresh air and hearing the birds and cicadas and feeling a warm breeze... it’s a little overwhelming. Michael finds him sitting on the back porch wiping at his eyes, and joins him

The second time is when he notices that his roots are showing, that his hair is growing again. Any cutting or dying was effectively permanent when he was a vampire, since their hair didn’t grow, but now... Getting a reminder that his body is living and changing again is strange. He decides to let it grow out a bit, just to see where it goes

The boys are very touchy with everyone. They were already before they turned back, but now that cuddles involve body heat, they happen much more often

So do visits to the mall, oddly enough. Lucy takes them once to get them some new clothes, and they have way too much fun popping in and out of different shops and all trying to fit in the photo booth at once. They may, technically, get banned from a few stores for causing too much of a ruckus, but that doesn’t stop them from coming back

Dwayne and David both get really into cooking, and Paul and Marko experiment a lot with mixing different things to “remember what tastes good” again. Usually doesn’t have the best outcomes, but they’re definitely adventurous

David forgets he has to sleep sometimes, but he’ll be out like a rock if anyone pulls him into bed or lets him lean on them while watching TV

Overall, adjusting is strange for all of them, but there’s a goodness to it too. Even when things are hard they figure them out eventually, and no matter what they always have each other

It feels like a new life, a new start, where they can finally get things right

Headcanons masterpost

#the fruit is talking again #the fruit is headcanoning again #tlb #the lost boys #the lost boys 1987 #michael emerson #sam emerson #lucy emerson #david the lost boys #marko the lost boys #paul the lost boys #dwayne the lost boys #the fruit is answering again

[cinebration]

Cuts & Bruises, Wounds & Abuses (Captain Syverson x Reader) [Part 5]

The morning after your period started.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Epilogue

Tagged: @scuzmunkie​​​, @thethirstyarchive​​​, @maan24​​​, @igotkatiepowers​​​, @sugarpenchant​​​, @lamthetwickster​​​, @omgkatinka​​​, @helloitsmeamie203​​​, @simply-heaven​​​, @l-u-n-a-m​​​, @fckdeusername​​​, @woterezwhet​​​, @olkathechaoticfox​​​, @bethabear12​​​, @bloodyinspiredfuck​​​, @flor-la-ganga95​​​, @bellumintra​​​, @nothingright​​​, @tapismyforte​​​, @thebonzifonzibrothers​​​, @peakymidwinter​​​, @fanfictionaddiction99​​​, @thereisa8ella​​​, @kmuir1​​​, @bichibibi​​​, @love-yourself-first-tfw​​​, @thorins-queen-of-erebor​​​, @lou-la-lou​​​, @kat002nd​​​, @babypink224221​​​, @speakerforthedead0​​​, @rn7rocks​​​, @sofiebstar​​​, @wheretheriversrunintothesea​​​, @thatchickwiththecamera​​​, @louiiissa​​​, @october505​​​, @turkish276​​​, @heartfelt-pen​​​, @mstgsmy​​​, @kazzilla​​​, @alyxkbrl​​​

Warnings: none

Gif Source: dailymalecelebs

Luckily for you, Syverson couldn’t take you out to meet the locals until the second day after your arrival, giving you ample time to work through the worst of the cramps. The painkillers Syverson had given you the afternoon before had worked wonders, but you only took one once. It was all you needed. Sleep did the rest.

The next morning, you were on your feet and functioning. Trudging into the kitchen, you expected another MRE.

Instead, you found one of Syverson’s men inside, a gruff Nordic type you had seen the first day. He heard you enter and immediately set a plate of eggs on the table, as well as some samoon.

“You’ll feel better after you eat,” he said, smiling from out of his beard. “My sister always does.”

Eyebrows arching in surprise, you sat down at the table. “Thank you.”

He nodded.

“What’s your name?” you asked, holding off from eating a moment.

“Deakins, Paul.”

“You don’t know how much this means to me, Paul.”

“If you’re as bad as my sister, which it looks like you are, then I have an idea.”

You forked up some of the eggs greedily and tore off a piece of the samoon to settle the acid in your stomach, undoubtedly a byproduct of the painkiller.

You looked up to see Deakins smiling. You smiled back, nearly laughing.

“You really gonna write about how we have it rough out here?”

You nodded. “It’s important. You and the locals need to be seen and heard.”

“Why’re the locals important?”

“Context. And because this is their war, too.”

“Things would be a hell of a lot easier if they understood that.”

You jumped, Syverson’s gruff voice behind you practically vibrating in your chest. Deakins shot you an apologetic look before scurrying out of the way. Curious, to see a man like that scurry.

Syverson circled around the table, arms crossed. His favorite stance, you noted.

Fishing the pill bottle out of your pocket, you set it on the table and pushed it toward him. “Thank you for those.”

Syverson eyed the bottle and slowly picked it up, turning it in his hand. The pills inside rattled.

“So,” you said, filling the silence, “the locals give you trouble.”

“Always.”

You waited a beat for him to elaborate. When no explanation was forthcoming, you prompted, “What do you intend to do here?”

“I can’t explain tactical operations—”

You sighed. “Then feed me the line.”

The captain blinked, a crease forming between his eyebrows. Arms folding back over his chest, his finger tapped his bicep as he scrutinized you. You met his gaze levelly, your own face hardening the longer he stared.

“We’re here to win hearts and minds,” he finally said.

You nodded slowly. “To do what?”

His eyes narrowed slightly. You weren’t sure he had dealt with reporters before, but the suspicion in his face proved he was cautious. Still, he answered, the words dragging out of him, “We need targets to hit.”

“I see.” You forked up more eggs and chewed them thoughtfully. “What are you doing to win hearts and minds?”

“We’ve reached out to the sheikh, but he’s useless. We also have a team coming in to help with the water.”

It was your turn for suspicion. “Why are you telling me this?”

His voice turned gruff again. “The sooner you get your answers, the sooner you’re out of here.”

“Fair enough,” you muttered.

“We leave in an hour. We’re taking you down to the marketplace. You can talk to your locals there for another hour.”

“Only an hour?”

“We can’t be sitting ducks.”

“Okay.”

Nodding, Syverson headed for the door.

“You know,” you called after him, “we’re not so different. Occupation-wise, I mean.”

He turned back, his face stern, though you couldn’t see it with your back turned to him. “How do you figure?”

“We picked thankless jobs,” you answered quietly, “and no one wants us around when we’re doing them.”

You looked over your shoulder to meet his cold gaze. Except it wasn’t cold. It had softened a fraction, though the muscle in his jaw was still flexed. He remained standing there, as though rooted to the spot.

“But we chose it,” you added, “because how could we choose anything else when we’re called?”

He blinked, breaking eye contact. His hands tightened for a moment on his biceps, a frown scoring his face. He opened his mouth, hesitated. You arched an eyebrow.

“An hour,” he repeated.

You ate the rest of your breakfast slowly, letting his words stew in your mind. There was more to the man than his stonewalling.

You just couldn’t decide whether you wanted to surmount that wall.

#Captain Syverson x Reader #Captain Syverson #Captain Syverson imagine #Henry Cavill x Reader #Henry Cavill #Henry Cavill imagine #Netflix Sand Castle #Sand Castle (2017)

[all-you-need-is-paul-mccartney]

Across the Universe II (Paul McCartney x Female!Reader)

Find Part One Here

A/N: I just checked chapter 1 and I literally put it up over a year ago. Shit. I just wrote a part 2, and finally got ahold of a computer to post it. I hope you's enjoy it. my last chapter had like... 20 likes altogether, so hopefully this chapter will draw some readers in.

Summary: Paul makes it to the Princeton campus where he not only reunites with his cousin Vick, but he meets a fellow stoner named Max. From there, the boys indulge in some Ivy League Hospitality.

WARNINGS: Drinking, swearing, smoking psychoactive substances (Cannabis), just dumb college guys doing dumb college shit. also, it's probably got mistakes bc I suck at revising

This is just a statement clearing up that none of these characters are mine except for Vick. Everyone else belongs to those who were involved in and/or collaborated with Julie Taymor in making the Across The Universe film (2007)

I'll rate this one a T seeing as the substance use isn't THAT bad.

"Vick Hoffner?"

"Try across the way, man. I think there's a Vick of sorts there."

Paul simply nodded at the stranger before turning on his heel and making a beeline to the next apartment, his hands fiddling with his useless book of contacts.

What was the point of giving me your number if you won't even pick up the phone?

He sighed, and rubbed his eyes tiredly with the palm of his hand. He'd been hitchhiking for two days just to get to the Princeton Campus, and then a few hours going through the closest rented apartments to locate him.

This was apartment number 9.

And it was nearing one AM.

Paul rapped weakly at the door, silently concluding that this would be the last place to check before finding somewhere to sleep until the next morning.

The door swung open, and Paul was face-to-face with this college kid who seemed to be about his age. He had unkempt blonde hair that curled around his ears, patchy stubble, and big blue eyes hazed over with the red assault of cannabis in his system.

Despite this, and the nearly empty beer bottle in his hand, the guy looked like he was keeping it together pretty well.

Paul cleared his throat, and raised an eyebrow. "... Vick Hoffner?"

"Nah, man. He's out at the moment gettin' drinks," the guy paused, and looked at Paul for a moment.

"Hey, hold on, you're not... Vick's cousin, are you?"

"Would it be an issue?" Paul asked sarcastically, to which the other guy responded after a laugh, "Nah. I just can't wait for him to get back and find out you got the better looks."

Paul just rolled his eyes, a smile on his lips. "Probably don't matter. He's the brains n' so is me brother. 'S what really matters; though I take pride in this thing." Paul pointed teasingly at his face.

The other guy smiled, pulling two cigarettes from behind his ear. He offered one to Paul, and he claimed the other. He lit the both of their cigs, and they each took a long drag after Paul scanned the apartment hallway for any angry tenants who happened to be against smoking indoors.

"So... does Vick's "pretty boy" cousin have a name?"

Paul nodded like the fact that he had a name was astounding information, but he smiled genuinely before bringing the cigarette back to his lips. "It's Paul."

"Max," The blond shoved his hand out, and the boys shook hands firmly. Max eyed Paul again."Where's that accent from, Paul?"

"Same place as me," Paul answered as he shoved his free hand in his pocket, blowing out smoke a moment after. "Liverpool."

"But why come to America?" Max gestured Paul into the apartment as he spoke, closing the door behind them. "Kill someone? Were you on the run from the cops? FBI?"

"'Sounds like you'd be one to know 'bout all of that." The boys took a seat on the couch in the centre of the room as their cigarettes slowly burned away as they chatted.

"Hey, hey, I've barely ever been in trouble with the cops, but I have pissed off every professor in Princeton, and have broken several campus windows."

" 'nd... you're proud of it?"

"I'm an adrenaline junkie, what can I say? Smashed nearly forty five windows and despite being Princeton's number one vandalidm suspect, I'm still not expelled. Y'know why?" Paul leaned in a little, enough to catch the dank scent of weed, and Max lowered his voice. "... because they can never prove it's me."

" 'nd why is that?"

The answer to Paul's question burst right through the apartment door.

"There's three more of us, and it could be any of them!" One of which, Paul could surprisingly recognize.

"Vick. Long time no see," Paul rose to his feet, and Vick, who'd set a six-pack of beer on the coffee table between them, greeted his cousin with a friendly hug and some "how are you"s.

Despite being an intelligent young man, Paul noticed that Vick behaved a little less like how he used to: polite, conservative, and proper. It was suspected that his behaviour changed because his newfound freedom at Uni allowed him to experience and access things that he would have been otherwise restricted from when he was younger.

Booze was one of them.

Dope was another.

In fact, he wordlessly cracked open a beer for Paul, and handed it to him like he'd asked for a drink in the first place.

Paul wasn't a huge drinker. It was never a vice of his, or anything like that either. He got shitfaced every once in a while for fun.

But when he brought that aluminum can up to his lips, Paul would never have guessed that it would have led to the night it did.

Five minutes after Vick and his buddies returned, Max brought out the roach Paul suspected he was sucking on before he got there.

With enthusiastic cheers from around the room, Max lit the sucker up, took a nice drag from the hot remainders of the joint, and passed it on to Paul.

Paul looked at the roach, almost as if he was confused. No one had asked him if he'd ever smoked before, but Max and the others yelled hurriedly over top of one another, instructing for Paul to suck in quickly and hold the smoke in for as long as he could.

It resulted in a coughing fit, and encouraging pats on the back from the other guys. Vick ended up taking the roach next, and Max reached out across the table.

"Have another one of these, my friend," he slid over another beer after cracking it open just moments before, despite the fact that Paul wasn't quite finished his first drink.

"Y'know, the more you cough, the higher you get? Pretty fucking sick. Like a win-win, man. You don't cough: You're high. You cough: You're super high."

As time went on, and Paul nursed his second drink more responsibly than the first one, things, ironically, started making less and less sense to him.

At one point, he was talking to the guy sitting across from him, and he just stopped talking for a whole ten seconds before turning to Max and asking "what the fuck was I just talking about?"

"Who fucking knows." The blond's shoulders shook as he tried suppressing his laughs, but eventually Paul just burst out into laughs and uncontrollable tears.

And everyone followed suit.

He had absolutely no idea how he got there, or how long he'd been there for, but sitting before Paul were now two empty Tankards. A waitress just set down another to him, and collected the table's empty glasses.

They were in a bar.

Max sat beside Paul as he watched Vick spectate the other two guys play pool.

For the life of him, Paul couldn't remember those guys' names, despite knowing he was told multiple times in the last few hours. To be fair, being drunk and stoned is a perfectly reasonable explanation as to how one forgets another's name. He supposed it didn't exactly matter, anyways.

"So, you got any hot sisters abroad I should know about?" Paul gave Max a funny look  but it may have been because it took so long for Paul's brain to register what had been asked.

"... No. Do you?"

"I've got two younger sisters; one's eight, and the older one's a little on the uglier side," though he didn't say it, Max's little smile indicated to Paul that he was joking about the last comment.

Paul and Max watched the boys play pool a little longer until the eight ball was pocketed.

"Wanna play?" Paul's head snapped to his left, and he nodded at Max's offer.

The other guys traded off, and Vick continued spectating. Max made the first break, and Paul watched as the cue ball rolled right into one of the pockets. Well, it seemed to have been only him to notice, because Max's eyes were instead trained on a brunette woman passing the two.

She looked over her shoulder to wink at Max, and rather than gouging his reaction, she simply walked off and took a seat alone in the corner of the bar.

"Do you believe in love at first sight, McCartney?"

"Well, I'm sure that it 'appens all the time. Never 'appened to me, personally."

"You just need to find the right one, my friend.." Max trailed off again, eyes still locked on the bird in the corner. He was slowly inching from the table and toward her. Max eventually just set the cue on the table and completely abandoned their game to talk to this girl, who flashed him a flirty smile with her bright white teeth and painted lips.

Paul watched Max amusedly, taking a swig from his beer and memorizing the moves Max was putting on his lady friend, who was clearly enjoying his company.

Maybe Paul wanted to get better at approaching certain women. He knew how to flirt, and be charming. It's not like he'd never had girlfriends. He'd had his fair share of girls in his teenage years, and he had Molly now back in Liverpool.

But Paul, at this moment, in his crossfaded brain, realized that he didn't want to attract the women he had been anymore. Just from her visual appearance, and how she was reacting to Max's charming flirts, Paul could sense an airiness to her personality. She was always smiling, inching closer, initiating physical contact by nudging his hand with her own, the list goes on.

Hell, even on her happiest days, Molly would be reluctant to kiss Paul, but he'd excuse her behaviour because she was just a regularly bitchy person who hated public displays of affection.

Or hardly any affection at all, it seemed.

Needless to say, Max returned to the table five minutes later with a phone number and a big red lipstick stain on his cheek. So to celebrate, the gang decided to go golfing.

"Here she is, Window Way," Max introduced Paul to the roof of their apartment building. The other boys started giggling at the name "Window Way". Each guy had their own club, Max held a bag of golf balls, and Vick carried another six pack.

Max set his things down and took in the crisp night air as Vick opened yet another beer for each of the boys. Max took a can for him, and one for Paul, and proceeded to show his new buddy just why he called it "Window Way".

"A Driver will send a ball..." Max pointed his arm straight out in front of him, his finger pointing right towards the windows of the Princeton Campus library.

"...Straight towards the school," Paul finished. He turned to look at Max. "You guys do this every night?"

"Paul, I do this all day. I barely go to class anymore."

"Hey, Max! You tee first!" One of the nameless guys called out to them. Max brandished the widest of grins before rushing to grab his club, a ball, and a green tee from his pocket. "Hey, Paulie, wanna help me out by holding my tee up?"

"Well, how'd I do that without gettin' hit?"

The other boys started laughing again, and Paul was genuinely confused until he found himself lying on his back seconds later, and the bottom of the tee between his lips, which only got heavier when Max set the ball down onto it.

If he were sober in this moment, Paul would not have been this comfortable with someone swinging a golf club full force towards his head and then trust their judgement regardless of their in intoxicity that they'd hit their target...

It was a good thing Max had been doing this for a long time, because wow, did that ball ever fly.

Paul watched in stoned disbelief as the ball soared far off into the distance and over the roof of the library. And while no one had seen it, they certainly heard the shatter from the other side of the building.

And that's when all five boys ran away from administration retired back to their room to light up a new joint Vick had also brought home as a surprise. They all sat around and lazily talked to one another about how crazy Max's shot was, and while some of them were falling in and out of sleep, Max insisted they all stay up to watch the sky change colour from the courtyard.

Paul didn't know how he stayed up any longer than he did, but he pulled through like a trooper, and they all watched the sky change as they lay down in the fallen leaves. But as soon as they all came back to their room for a final time, Paul dragged himself in exhaustion to the living room chair to sit, but he just slipped out of it onto the floor, and that's when his body decided to turn off on its own.

The other guys dropped to the ground or onto the furniture like dead flies, and within ten seconds of the door closing, the room was quiet.

And it stayed like that for nearly ten hours.

Paul woke up that evening with a raging headache and multiple trips to the bathroom to be sick, but now three things were certain for him: He definitely had one hell of a time, he definitely wanted to hang out with Max a lot more, and that evening Paul definitely got by with a little help from his new friends.

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

A/A/N: alrighty, if this chapter doesn't do too too bad, I'll see about continuing this story. I've got chapter 3 pretty much done as well, I'm just in the midst of revising it. If you want more, by all means, PLEASE let me know!

#across the universe #paul mccartney #the beatles #paul mccartney x reader #macca #george harrison #john lennon #ringo starr

[pagingevilspawn]

You Said You’d Grow Old With Me

again, another one-shot that i never posted on tumblr, only the link, so yeah! im also pretty sure this fic makes no sense, but my 4 am brain wrote it so...

____

"thought we had the time, had our lives, now you'll never get older, older"

~*~

TW// major character death

takes place some time after 16x15, before 16x16.

____

Jo was laying in her bed. Their bed. The bed that felt too cold. The bed that felt too empty. The bed that felt too big. After crying she felt better, having Link comfort her while she broke down. She wanted him back. She wanted him to answer her calls. She needed to know if he was okay. If he left her like she thought he did she at least needed to know if he was okay. One call. One text. Thats all she was asking for.

Except she wouldn't be satisfied with that. The five different positive pregnancy tests to the side of her were an example. She was pregnant. They were pregnant. How the hell did that happen? She was just pranking him about having a baby a two months ago, and now she really was going to have one? And at the best of times too. Right when her husband decides to go MIA.

She wasn't sure how long she sat there for, staring blankly into the distance, her body incapable of feeling anything. Numb. Thats how she felt. She felt like she was bathing in a tub of ice and all her sense and nerves had just shut down. Numb.

She'd only been numb once before, after seeing Paul for the first time in five years. Bu this was worse, oh this was so much worse. She couldn't breathe. She couldn't move. She couldn't talk. She couldn't do anything, she was just numb.

She wishes she could say she was startled by the sound of knocking her door, but she wasn't. She'd gotten used to Meredith and Link coming over at random hours of the day. Sometimes to rant about anything, or sometimes to just talk with her.

Maybe it's Alex, she thinks, and with that thought she gets up from the too big bed and makes her way to the loft's wooden door.

Please be you please be you.

The door opens and the sight she sees is one she wishes she didn't.

In one second she knew that her whole world was about to crumble under her feet. Oh god, how badly she wished she stayed in bed, how badly she wished she was at the hospital.

"Ma'am is this the home of Alexander Karev?" the officer asks, looking up from his notepad, his partner standing next to him dutifully.

Jo gulps visibly, already feeling the tears burning in her eyes. "Y-yes, he's my husband, i'm his wife."

The two officer share a sympathetic glance. "We're afraid there's been an accident.

____

After a short phone call with Meredith and one plane ride to some place in Oregon, Jo is standing outside some hospital she's never heard of, Meredith right by her side, holding her hand so tightly, like it was a life-line. Because it was. They knew nothing. All they knew was that Alex was involved in a ca accident that involved a drunk driver, and they hadn't been able to identify him for the past two weeks. They didn't know anything. Was he alive? Was he dead? Had they simply only contacted her so they would know what to do with his body? Was he seriously just okay and he was in a medically induced coma? Did he have amnesia? Did he not remember who he was?

For two weeks her husband had been just another John Doe. One that they see in the pit nearly every day.

He wasn't Doctor Alex. He was even a doctor. He wasn't her husband. He wasn't a best friend, a companion, a lover. He wasn't a surgeon who saved the lives of tiny humans. He wasn't a guy who made little kids less scared of the hospital. He was just another meaningless John Doe, taking up space in the ICU.

But oh, she felt guilty. So guilty. She was worried that he was having some kind of secret affair while he was really just in the hospital.

Meredith squeezes her hand, "You ready?" she croaks out, her red rimmed eyes string up at the hospital in front of her. Meredith wasn't ready. She wasn't ready for what stood behind those doors. She wasn't ready.

"No." Jo shakes her head, a few stray tears already coming down her cheek. She hadn't gotten them to stop. She physically couldn't get them to stop. Ever since those six dreadful words came out of the officer mouth.

Meredith sighs in understanding, "I know." she says, stepping forward and taking the first steps, Jo following behind her robotically.

No, not robotically. Numbly.

How naive she was, thinking that what she felt earlier was numbness, this was a whole new level. This was paralyzing. This was frightening. This was feeling her body start to disintegrate piece by piece.

Without knowing it she was standing on the sixth floor, the ICU. Meredith leans over the nurses station, asking for the room number for Alex Karev.

Jo doesn't see the sad, sympathetic smile the nurse gives the two, but Meredith does. And that's when she knew that things weren't going to be alright. Nothing was going to be bright and shiny and happy with unicorns and rainbows.

Somehow, they end up on the other side of the Alex's room, but Jo had yet to look up from her gaze on the floor. She's never noticed how white the linoleum of hospital floor were. They were shiny too. So shiny that she could see her reflection.

It was when Meredith lets out a soft sob that she finally decides to look up, not at all prepared for the sight in front of her.

The sight of her husband, the love of her life, lying in a bed, tubes sticking out of every possible place in his body.

It was then she felt her whole world crash down. Crash down and burn. A gut wrenching sob escapes her throat, a hand coming up to cover her mouth as the tears come down her face. They come down so fast she cant even wipe them away until her face is soaked again.

"Mer I-i," she chokes out, feeling her breathing start to pick up as she tries and fails to form her words.

Meredith nods, "Go in." she whispers brokenly, watching as a doctor makes his way towards.

The doctor holds out his palm to the blonde, "Hi i'm Doctor Kelsey, i'm the neurosurgeon on Mr. Karev's case-"

"It's doctor." she interrupts him. "Doctor Karev. Doctor Alex Karev." she says slowly.

The man nods, "Okay, Dr. Karev has been here for fifteen days now. There was an MVC on the 45 with a drunk driver and he ended up getting very severely injured-"

She cuts him off again, "I'm sorry, let me introduce myself. I'm Dr. Meredith Grey."

She watches as the man's eyes widen in surprise. He was standing in front of Meredith Grey? The Meredith Grey? Catherine Fox Award Meredith Grey? Daughter of two time Catherine Fox recipient Ellis Grey?

"W-wow. I-its an honor to meet you Doctor Grey, i'm a big fan." he says, smiling brightly.

Meredith jolts back in shock, eyes narrowing at the man who was about ten years older than her. "It's an honor to meet me?" she hisses, watching as the fellow surgeon's smile falls as quickly as it appeared.

"I-its an honor to meet me? That's what you have to say? You have the audacity to say that, as i stand here, outside of the room of my best friend, who is alive because of tubes and vents? It's an honor to meet me, when the only reason i'm here if because my best friend, my person, is lying there, unable to move or breathe, or talk? It's an honor to meet me?" Meredith yells , tears escaping her eyes, earning the attention from the others in the ICU, but she didn't care.

The man nods furiously, "O-of course, i'm so sorry Doctor Grey, that was very disrespectful of me." he says, going on to explain the extent of Alex's injuries.

___

Jo stumbles into the room lifelessly, seeing the unmoving body of her husband lying on the bed.

The sight causes a whole new round of tears to spring into her eyes and down her cheeks, "Oh Alex," she chokes out, grabbing ahold of his left hand, clasping it firmly in her palm.

it was cold. Way too cold. Normally his hands were warm. Not sweaty or clammy, they were just warm and soothing, perfect for her's to slip into at any time of the day.

She feels the cold band of his wedding ring touch her fingers and that's when she lets the sobs take over.

The gut wrenching, heart breaking, deep sobs as she collapses on the side of his bed and onto her knees, completely ignoring the chair next to her.

She couldn't hold herself up. its like her legs could not longer support her, like they had turned into helpless piles of water, "Alex please." she begs, lips trembling as she places kiss over kiss on his hand.

She wasn't stupid, she was a doctor. She knew what all the tuning and the wires and the ventilators meant.

"Please tell me this is just some joke. Some really mean, really awful joke. Please Alex. Please." she cries.

"Please tell me this is just a nightmare, an awful, awful nightmare. Please tell me this isn't real Alex. Please." she begs, holding his hand so tight as her body shakes with sobs.

She shakes her head, laughing softly at first, then louder and louder, "Oh god." she sobs, her laughter coming to a halt. "This is real." she whispers, feeling as her tears drop from her eyes to the floor.

"No Alex. you don't get to die on me alright? Because, because i cant live without you okay? You-you need to know that. If you, if you die, i die." she says, taking both of her palms and clasping her tiny hands around his big one.

She shakes her head, "No Alex. You don't get to do this to me. You don't get to leave me. We-we meed to grow old a and grey, and we need to have kids. So many kids. We need to have at least three kids. We need to get a dog a-and travel the world. We still need to do that Alex."

Jo sniffles, "But it's not only you that needs me Alex, this baby needs you too." she sobs, standing up and sitting down on the bed, taking Alex's hand and placing it over her stomach, hoping that this would be enough. That this would be enough for him to wake up, to defy all medical standards and wake the hell up.

"Please Alex, this baby needs you." Jo sobs, "Because, i sure as hell can't do this without you. Y-you're the peds surgeon Alex, you were practically born to be a dad." she wipes her tears to no avail, since they just kept coming. "You need to hold this baby in your arms, you need to be there with me to tell them about how we had sex in a shed next to a corpse on our wedding on their wedding day. You-you need to see them grow up and graduate Alex."

"Y-you need to be there Alex. I need you, Mer needs. Zola and Bailey and Ellis, they need you. The tiny children that you save all the time need you. They need Doctor Alex. I need Doctor Alex."

"I-i need you to get so overprotective if it's a girl when she has her first boyfriend. I need to watch you teach our baby how to wrestle if he's a boy. Or a girl, i'm not judging." she chuckles soft'y, holding his palm against her still flat abdomen.

She lays down beside him, laying there in silence for a long time. She lets the thoughts roam in her mind.

Jo sighs, "I hated you at first." she starts, absentmindedly threading her fingers though his hair like she had done so many time before. 'Like seriously, you were one of the biggest assholes I ever met." she chuckles softly.

"And then there was the teen mom who was just going to abandon her baby that i went al crazy on, rightfully so by the way." she smiles slightly, knowing that if he could somehow hear her he was probably rolling his eyes. "And then suddenly, i told you my whole life story, just like that. I'd never done that with anyone before." she sighs, glancing back down to her stomach, where she had her hand clasped in his in a hold over her stomach. "I'd never opened up to someone so easily before. It was like... my heart knew I could trust you before any other part of me could."

"I know i know, you're laughing at me. I sound like something out of a cheesy lifetime movie." she smiles softly. "And then came Ben and Bailey's wedding, and then, before i knew it, you were my best friend."

She starts to trace his fingers, something she always did to calm her down, "And then, one day, i was drinking a beer at Joe's with Jason, and all i could think was that i would rather be with you, on the couch that I bought, and watching action movies with you. That's when i realized i was i love with you." she whispers, some new tears building in her eyes.

"And then we wen through crap. So much crap Alex. That's why this can't be the end. Thats why this can't be the end of us okay? Because we've been through too much crap to let a drunk driver end us."

"Please Alex, i'm begging you, come back." she sobs, starting to pound her fists on his chest.

"Come back! Come back you son of a bitch! Come back!" Jo cries, unable to atop the steady flow of water coming down her face.

"Please Alex." Jo begs, her eyes so red and puffy that they looked like she had been crying for years. "You-you have my whole heart Alex. And i-if you die, you will crush it, and I wont make it. I cant live without you okay? You hear me? I need you Alex. I- i cant breathe. I cant breathe, ii cant exist in a world without you in it, okay?" she sobs, hyperventilating as she trues to get her words out, which only came out in barely audible sobs.

Somewhere along the way she cries herself to sleep, waking up a nearly a whole day later to a view of Meredith, Amelia, Tom, Jackson, Arizona, Callie, Link, Cristina, Bailey, and Richard standing outside the ICU.

And for one second, before she opens her eyes, she forgets everything, simply snuggling into the body and the scent she missed so much, a combination of aftershave and spearmint.

And then she remembers.

And oh god, she just wants to die.

She feels like a knife is being driven through her heart, stabbing her again and again and again, with absolutely no intention to stop.

Eventually Meredith breaks her out of her trance by knocking on the door, in which Jo responds by a head nod, letting her know that it was okay to come in.

The blonde enters, flowed by Amelia and Tom. "I called them. I wanted them here to consult, look at all his scans, everything." Meredith mutters, her voice hoarse and broken from trying to hold in her tears.

Jo looks up at the two, a small glimmer of hope shining in her eyes, "P-please." she stutters out, her voice high pitched and squeaky, sounding more broken than they'd ever heard her before, "tell me you guys can do something."

Amelia takes a deep breath, letting a few drops of water pool in her eyes, "Jo-"

"No," she sobs, shaking her head. "It took me twenty-seven years to find him, longer to realize i loved him, and even longer to be able to marry him." she starts to shake, trying to take in every detail of his face.

His overgrown stubble.

The soft creases around his eyes.

The slight wrinkles etched into his forehead.

"Jo, we can't bring him back. I'm so sorry." Tom says, trying to put a comforting hand on her shoulder, which she shakes off.

She slowly nods, unconsciously mumbling something about how she was going to let everyone say their goodbyes before she said hers.

So thats what she did. One by one the said their tearful, heartbroken goodbyes, still i denial that the man they loved would soon be gone.

Jo goes in one last time, lying down next to him, holding his figure in her arms. "I love you." she sobs.

"I haven't said that enough. I love you Alex. God, I love you so much jerkface. I didn't know it was possible to love someone as much as i love you." she cried, her tears an endless flow into a river. "I love you, i love you, i love you."

"And, please, please love me enough to come back." she begs him, still holding onto that tiny bit of hope.

"You said we'd be together forever Alex. You and me. Please, please let there be forever." she pleads with him one last time, giving him a soft kiss on his cheek.

With one deep breath she gives a nod to the nurse, who slowly begins to remove the ventilator. Then she unplugs him from all the machine.

She lays her head on his heart, feeling as he breathes one last time under her.

And then, she places a kiss on his lips, one last time

and all of a sudden,

he was gone.

"we had plans, we had visions, now i cant see ahead. We were one, were golden, forever you said."

"didn't say goodbye now I'm frozen in time getting colder, colder. "

"One last word. One last moment. To ask you why, you left me here behind."

"You said you'd grow old with me."

#jolex #jolex fic #jolexau #ignoring canon #jolex fanfic #jolex fanfiction #alex karev #jo wilson #jo karev #greysanatomy #greys anatomy #greys abc #meredith grey #major character death #based on a song

[punkscowardschampions]

Ronnie & Joe

Ronnie: [is gonna rock up late despite literally living with Charlie so enjoy the entrance everybody]

Joe: [when you weren’t invited but still gonna show up like you have somewhere better to be, love that for you, the effort we’ve not gone to because we live here so it’s kinda okay but not really Joseph, also I imagine kinda shook she ended up showing]

Ronnie: [likewise in the sense that she dresses the same everywhere she goes unless it’s a job interview or court appearance lol but we know she looks good if you’re Joseph and into it, I imagine her zoning in on Jamie immediately like who the fuck is this and then oh I’ve heard nothing about you kinda energy soz gal]

Joe: [rude but not untrue in this case, at least Charlie can make it seem like you’re joking and Joe can go get you a drink like soz this is all we have energy ‘cos in jokes]

Ronnie: [I highly doubt they have enough seats around that table so I also imagine her dragging up something to sit on like yeah I’m here to stay bitches and drinking Joe’s drink while he’s gone as a throwback to when she did when they met at that gig and cos we’re obvs claiming him LOL]

Joe: [we know the food is gonna be studenty anyway so having smaller portions won’t kill any of us lmao, just dying at how shocked Sophie is having to conceal she is, host on queen, boring boyfriend having no opinions of course]

Ronnie: [don’t worry gal depending how much of a jealous rage we get into we probably won’t be eating it so you’ll still have brownies left, her face would be iconic and I totally picture Marc on his phone the entire time because Paul used to do that when he was with Trace]

Joe: [giving nothing to this bizarre situation, too real, Charlie and Sophie holding this together, soz guys, Joe jus amused af, do we sit opposite or next to hmm]

Ronnie: [read that as soz gays, ILY mum & dad, I think he needs to sit opposite Jamie so that she can accuse them of eye fucking each other or whatever so probably next to]

Joe: [okay yes gather ‘round everyone]

Ronnie: she lives here

Joe: yeah I told you, Silent Bob’s gf

Ronnie: you said he had a bitch not shes been chained to the radiator since youse lot moved in

Joe: maybe that’s his secret

Ronnie: whens he letting you have your go

Joe: got my own radiator you can have a go on when this is over

Joe: not to brag or nothing

Ronnie: wont be over til the fat flatmate sings & the other one sucking you off while her & mariah duet and the boyfriend pretends he aint watching youse instead is fuck all to brag about

Joe: be lucky if it got close to that level of mildly interesting

Joe: where are you in all this then

Ronnie: under the sink looking for drain cleaner or whatever else i can drink

Joe: why do you get to have all the fun?

Ronnie: i dont waste my time asking bullshit questions

Joe: how are we gonna waste our time

Ronnie: im gonna kill your shared girlfriend & youre gonna cry about it

Joe: I don’t think I am

Joe: no amount of tragedy is gonna breakthrough the chemical fog

Ronnie: you would if you could

Joe: [🙄 at her]

Ronnie: [tips however much is left of her drink into his lap not at all accidentally but we know Charlie and Soph will pretend it was]

Joe: [whip them off to go get changed boy]

Ronnie: [when you wanna follow him but you just gotta glare instead]

Joe: [probably taking whatever we’ve got in to make this go easier, ‘scuse us, so much missing out]

Ronnie: [you know she turned up already on something so do what you gotta do Joseph]

Joe: [Jamie should be talking to you about uni things thus alienating everyone else a lil ‘cos that is a bit rude and will annoy you gal]

Ronnie: [fully just opening up a wound over here literally cos she was already jealous but did not realise they had this much shit in common or anything in common actually so we’re just livid and bleeding]

Joe: [Sophie just running with the kitchen roll like omg do we have bandages guys like oh babe you truly only mean well, Charlie just giving the can you not looks of it all, Joe just jealous because we’ve obviously got our long sleeves]

Ronnie: [a spoken out loud fuck you at everyone but mainly Joe as we go to the bathroom to not deal with this but instead evoke the energy of when Mae downed that mouthwash because she definitely would and also go through the cabinets for anything sharp obvs]

Joe: [at least you can go under the guise of checking on her but really you’re just seeing what she’s doing]

Ronnie: [1000% have not locked the door because we wanted him to follow us but that won’t stop her telling him to get out because walking contradiction forever]

Joe: [locks it behind him in response]

Ronnie: [the most intense glare in response because could not be more livid rn]

Joe: [grabbing wherever the wound is like we’re gonna kiss it better or something like Soph for a casual bit of blood drinking]

Ronnie: [obviously have to push him away really hard because we’re obviously really into it and excuse you boy we’re trying to be angry and hate you, soz to all the flatmates when you hear that crashing about]

Joe: [lmao this tiny bathroom getting destroyed, steady yourself and her despite that clearly not being what she wants right now, roll up a sleeve ‘you never did the X’]

Ronnie: [the glorious visual of trying to get past him to leave/push him away again at the same time in a small space so you just end up pressed up against each other and the door making eye contact and it’s hot af ‘you never took me anywhere’]

Joe: [‘so let me’ do you mean let’s get out of here or in a saucy way either or you skinny as hell girl so if you not really trying to leave it’s easy not to let you]

Ronnie: [‘she’ll let you’ because we’re not just dropping this even if we want to]

Joe: [‘who?’ like an oblivious boy ‘cos clearly not where our head is]

Ronnie: [a really vicious read of Jamie based on what we’re learned this evening that I’m not gonna do because I am not that mean but it’s obvious it’s her and not Sophie we’re talking about, hope you don’t hear us gal]

Joe: [‘I’m not interested’ in every sense right now ‘and you know that, stop pissing about’]

Ronnie: [‘wasn’t any other cunt round the table hanging on her every fucking word, I know that’ because that was blatant Jamie]

Joe: [‘I can’t help it that her fella’s an accountant’ what do you do Marc, do any of us know lol, shrugs ‘we go to the same school, that’s it’ and a look like whatever the fuck this is is clearly more]

Ronnie: [she would wanna lol but we can’t because still mad ‘that’s it?’ not actually a question though more like you better be telling the truth boy ‘why the fuck have you never told me about her then?’]

Joe: [‘I thought I had when I said he had a girlfriend’ not not a lie ‘none of them are what I want to talk about, that’s it’]

Ronnie: [‘you were thinking with this’ grabbing his dick when we say so ‘that’s it’ cos even if that was true Joseph we shade the rest of the flatmates often and you know damn well we love doing it]

Joe: [shakes head even though we are very clearly into that ‘she’s no Soph’ like it wouldn’t be as funny soz]

Ronnie: [‘is right’ like yeah I know you actually seriously wanna get with her, and moving away but not to leave but to pick back up whatever implement we were gonna hurt ourselves with before he came in but didn’t get chance to because we’re genuinely upset]

Joe: [literally putting ourselves in front of it like no ‘Ronnie’ like I don’t know how you’re going to even put it into words boy so it’s mainly a !!! look]

Ronnie: [a look that starts out like don’t try and stop me/fuck you but turns into !! when his does like say something/do something if you mean it]

Joe: [got to go in and kiss you whilst making her push whatever she was gonna use on herself into him, now or never, enjoy the tension finally getting released]

Ronnie: [obviously we’re kissing you back so we all know what’s gonna happen next lol, soz flatmates I really hope you can’t hear anything, especially Charlie cos you actually know they’re related]

Joe: [it is not a big flat so keep quiet, just think he’s comforting her for all this time or what, god bless]

Ronnie: [she would be trying to keep quiet but not for y’all more so he thinks she’s unimpressed/not that into it but that would literally last all of a second because she’s obviously very into it]

Joe: [the levels you aren’t gonna wanna go back in but can’t be seen as being romantic lads]

Ronnie: [I could easily have her leave if we want though because it’s a fact that she doesn’t wanna be here and everyone would be relieved except Joseph]

Joe: [that probably makes sense, honestly, and you’ve freaked them all out, as was the point]

Ronnie: [and lbr you’ve freaked yourselves out with how good that hook up was too so]

Joe: [just go hide in your room like you’re very taxed by that in an acceptable way boy]

Ronnie: [god knows where you’re gonna go gal but please don’t OD again like you literally did in Margate no time ago]

Joe: [the headfuckery]

Ronnie: [poor Charlie just like UMMM WTF cos she must look bad even for her rn and we’ve behaved terribly and then literally legged it so]

Joe: [thank god you’re such a natural party go-er so you can make up some excuse to put them all at relative ease but yeah, for sure like excuse me]

Ronnie: [might be fun to do a convo between them when we’re done with this one]

Joe: [I’m down even though I really haven’t used him yet, I’ll give it a go]

Ronnie: [yeah it’s been forever since we did the group chats with them and Bronson and Bea it feels like another life, I can send you the convo we did where she told him she met Joe if you like cos I re-read that the other day and it was pretty good]

Ronnie: [but the real question is who’s gonna break first and start a convo and how long are we leaving it?]

Joe: [please do ‘cos did not realize we’d done that tbh]

Joe: [I could make a case for either of them, him to prove he meant it as he left it last time but her so she can’t automatically be on the ‘it meant nothing’ total defensive hmm]

Joe: [some hours later when the party is over, or could be]

Joe: Charlie was going pub, he’s left here though

Ronnie: [even later because whatever she’s doing she’s messy and can’t reply to the extent that she doesn’t need to because he won’t be expecting her to and yet here we are]

Ronnie: did whitney ask you to pass it on to us cos hes still disappointed like

Joe: couldn’t say

Joe: just letting you know that you’ll have a free gaff for a while longer

Ronnie: where have i chucked the other one for the sake of this free gaff in your mind mckenna

Joe: alright, free rooms better than fuck all

Ronnie: its his emmy oggie i aint there either

Joe: anywhere good?

Ronnie: compared to what

Joe: established it’s no brag compared to tonight

Ronnie: not gonna stop you comparing me & her

Joe: compare to what?

Joe: pleasantries over cocopops

Ronnie: youll be interested in eating her out now youve got what you wanted off me

Ronnie: 9 is easier to carve than an 8 and you wont look like youre trying to copy the infinity sign one of your other exes wouldve got inked on her

Joe: it’s not remotely the fucking same

Joe: if I was arsed about getting my numbers up there’s millions of girls in this city I could hit up before you

Ronnie: yeah youre not related to any of em and theyd have less clue how to shoot up than you do

Joe: even if the related bit was ringing 100% true, you’re the only user in town now?

Joe: you don’t have to pervert it when it already was

Ronnie: youre already romanticising it like a fucking 13 year old so yeah i do cause one of us has to get real

Joe: you reckon I’m so okay with it just because I can admit I wanted it

Joe: who do you reckon you’re lying to like I weren’t there

Ronnie: who do you reckon youre talking to like i didnt fucking leave you there for a reason

Joe: Fuck off

Ronnie: i did

Joe: for someone who reckons they’re so open, you chat so much shit

Ronnie: open to what soft lad infection

Joe: scars and trackmarks on your sleeve

Ronnie: yeah

Joe: you didn’t miss much

Ronnie: no shit you didnt just invite me cause you wanted to fuck me

Ronnie: can do that anywhere

Joe: yeah and you didn’t just wanna come to make Soph cry, like

Ronnie: i owed you

Joe: get it off your to-do list then

Joe: well done

Ronnie: stop crying youll never look as ugly as horse girl doing it or go for as long as her

Joe: you love her, we all 👀

Ronnie: i said shut up

Joe: no, you say something that’s not stupid

Ronnie: what for fucks sake

Ronnie: what did you reckon id say when you started chatting shit like nothing happened

Joe: alright, I don’t know

Joe: it happened, right

Ronnie: you werent hallucinating

Joe: nothing that makes that happen in the bathroom cupboard

Joe: I don’t regret it, I know that

Ronnie: meant to be made up to hear it am i

Joe: nah, probably not

Joe: but you wanted me to talk about it so I am

Ronnie: i wanted you to take the fucking hint when i legged it as soon as

Joe: you could’ve blocked me, so

Joe: pardon me for not taking it that seriously

Ronnie: not your crazy ex & i couldnt deny you your bullshit heroics

Ronnie: mary aint carrying me anywhere and i know how bad you wanna see me turn blue

Joe: you like having a stalker, is what you mean

Ronnie: block me and get your whore flatmate to tell you what she likes about you

Ronnie: weve established i aint got the talent to sing no cunts praises

Joe: we’ve established I’m not interested in that

Ronnie: cause you want me to tell you how smart you are at fucking me instead of beat the shit out of you

Ronnie: it wont last

Joe: familys forever, sis

Ronnie: not to your ma baby

Ronnie: did i look enough like her for you

Joe: what do you reckon

Joe: your theory, not mine

Ronnie: mustve youve still not fucked off

Joe: you’ve got room for another face tat or two

Ronnie: go do that then

Joe: you can leave out the yes sir

Joe: not my fantasy

Ronnie: no shit like youve been my bitch since you hit send on facebook

Joe: 😂

Joe: I’ve been worse

Ronnie: you trying to turn me on or what its a bit late for it

Joe: just the once, alright

Joe: bit cliche but probably for the best considering

Joe: very sensible of you

Ronnie: cliche that my da didnt stick around long enough for his side of the family to properly cut or sew me up so ive gotta regret not getting chance to put a razor blade inside me before you 💔

Ronnie: now youre gonna reckon i care youve said the once ll do when i just hate you & hate how you fuck even more

Joe: Could’ve said it was about as much fun as

Joe: it’s alright

Joe: both confused, clearly

Ronnie: youre not confused youre fucking smug

Joe: hardly another achievement for the fridge door

Joe: what’s to be smug about

Ronnie: probably for the best i dont answer that if thats how you feel

Joe: come on

Joe: aside from proving you were full of shit about not wanting to as well

Ronnie: fuck you

Joe: you don’t want me to say how I really feel

Ronnie: making me cum earlier dont mean you know what i want now

Joe: right, you want me to declare my love so you get more out of telling me to fuck off, that’s more like it

Ronnie: do i fuck

Joe: then what do you want

Ronnie: like you give the slightest shit

Joe: I do too

Ronnie: no you dont

Joe: I fucking do

Joe: [prove it in a way only y’all would, carve her name or something]

Ronnie: [send him your own pics of the bite marks you’re covered in which is a self harming thing you’ve not done since you were a kid because it’s been a headfuck every second since you two met and we’re not coping honey]

Joe: you hungry?

Joe: you didn’t eat fuck all, I mean

Joe: could get something not dubiously prepared by Soph

Ronnie: hungry as you are funny

Joe: I weren’t trying to be

Joe: on the spectrum, or whatever you said

Ronnie: you wish you had the excuse or the musical prodigy status

Joe: 💔 about that genuinely

Joe: just a dickhead

Ronnie: yeah

Joe: I don’t know what to say

Joe: there’s no point saying I’m sorry

Ronnie: no point is right youre not sorry

Joe: nah

Joe: it’d be lovely for you if I’d found you and you were fine

Joe: but like you said, it ain’t about me or her, it’s about loads of shit and you clearly weren’t so

Joe: just seems pointless

Ronnie: im made up you finally got your head round it

Joe: Yeah well, I didn’t tell you I was a good person

Joe: don’t mean I don’t give no fucks, just ‘cos I ain’t trying to save you

Ronnie: you keep telling me you aint like it matters to me who you are

Joe: yeah, it doesn’t in why you’re fucked

Joe: but what do you want from me

Ronnie: its your fucking fault im like this climbing the walls same as when i was a kid

Joe: yeah ‘cos you were doing really great before weren’t ya

Ronnie: all you give a fuck about is letting yourself off the fucking hook

Joe: Blame me then what does it change

Joe: do something about it other than fucking yourself up, I don’t care

Ronnie: stop lying that youre bothered if your only answer to me losing my mind is that i was before

Joe: I can’t help you

Joe: If you thought I could, though why the fuck you would

Joe: then I am sorry

Ronnie: 💔🖕

Joe: I’ve got my own problems

Joe: if I had any solutions, I’d light ‘em up and shoot them into myself first, naturally

Ronnie: youve got a solution i gave it to you

Ronnie: why the fuck would you make me feel something

Joe: Selfishness

Joe: pure and simple

Ronnie: on your way to a grown up habit im dead proud

Joe: what more could I want

Ronnie: that to scab over seeing as youve finally admitted its bullshit

Joe: I still think about you constantly

Joe: I still want to know everything about you

Joe: I’d rot with you

Ronnie: youve got your own problems to think about

Joe: yeah, and that’s hell

Joe: I’ve done plenty of that

Ronnie: yeah and youve got your escape

Joe: take yours

Joe: can have plan bs and cs even if a is the best

Ronnie: youre the kid who tells the rest to jump off a bridge

Ronnie: cute

Joe: you’re implying I wouldn’t and all

Ronnie: i dont give a shit what you do but i aint giving you the satisfaction of being the last fuck i ever had

Ronnie: youd cling to life long enough to write a pathetic song about it

Joe: that’s the nicest thing you’ve said

Joe: which is saying something ‘cos you’re so sweet, like

Ronnie: youre welcome

Joe: I’ll do a Dylan style ballad about all your 👼🏼 deeds

Ronnie: thats the biggest turn off out of everything youve ever said or done

Joe: thank god, you’re insatiable 😏

Ronnie: once you said

Joe: not for my benefit

Ronnie: its all only for your benefit remember

Joe: if that were true you’d still be here

Ronnie: if it was true i could be

Joe: come back

Ronnie: cant ive got a face tat to get done

Joe: I understand

Joe: my art isn’t there yet

Joe: won’t ruin your beauty

Ronnie: go ed and chuck yourself off a bridge you dont have to wait for me to boot your door in & do you in for chatting shit

Joe: well I am already devvo I’m not a prodigy so yeah, add lack of a steady hand to the list of failures

Joe: probably the meds

Joe: you know being poetic is all I do, why have we downgraded it to chatting shit 💔

Ronnie: why are you calling me beautiful when you could write it in your suicide note for your ma theres your downgrade

Joe: you’re too romantic for your own good

Joe: I wouldn’t be writing a note, sorry to dash your illusions

Ronnie: not me saying i get you mckenna thats your delusion

Ronnie: what are you gonna draw on me then

Joe: you do but it’s more fun to take the piss and pretend you don’t so

Joe: That is the question

Joe: won’t brand you, don’t worry

Ronnie: if i dont want it ill cut it out no pressure

Joe: it’s just skin right

Ronnie: yeah

Joe: how olds your oldest scar

Ronnie: older than you

Joe: what did you do

Ronnie: i used to take headbanging literally

Joe: ah, the floor never saw you coming, yeah

Joe: I have a head scar too [cos he either does or did on the stalker show idk but there we go with a photo like she probably knows hun]

Ronnie: [I just imagine her smiling to herself like yeah I know nerd]

Ronnie: cant both be poets had to express myself somehow before i pushed a safety pin through my cheek

Joe: that explains the permanent 😾

Joe: fucked the muscles, like

Ronnie: your shit jokes do

Joe: it was always easier to just start fights to get hurt

Joe: when I was a kid

Joe: though you work out ways to be sneaky fast, if you have to

Ronnie: they didnt wanna fight me

Joe: everyday sexism strikes again

Ronnie: fuck off not cos im a girl

Joe: why then

Ronnie: wouldnt be me getting hurt and if i was i didnt care

Ronnie: all those mental problems you told that call centre cunt about like

Joe: ‘course you were too proud to make it count

Joe: have to let them get some punches in or there was no point, yeah

Ronnie: no point in fitz flouncing in either fun though

Joe: true

Joe: I’ve got a brother and all, I remember what it’s like

Ronnie: scraps never went far enough

Joe: yeah

Joe: most kids aren’t that psycho

Ronnie: 💔

Joe: being misunderstood served me so well for the whole musician thing so whatever, I guess

Ronnie: i mightve bothered keeping some of my bastards about if they were guaranteed nutters thatd serve you well

Joe: you’d get your own room then, like

Joe: even if you had to pack them to the rafters

Ronnie: for a stalker youre dead concerned about my privacy

Joe: nah, ‘course not

Joe: I’d rather have a place to do the gear without the possibility of Soph or Charlie 🥺ing at us obvs, nothing but selfishness

Ronnie: theres loads of places

Joe: you can show me

Ronnie: is she there now she can let me in

Joe: no idea

Joe: their room is near the door, makes sense they’d be your first victims

Ronnie: youre too selfish to get off your arse and do it

Joe: if you’re coming I’ll carry you in myself, you know that

Ronnie: ill be there and youll still be going on about what youre gonna do

Ronnie: no wonder the other kids kept smacking you

Joe: yeah, all mouth me, deffo what I was known for

Joe: not a euphemism and I don’t think they were wishing it was but who knows

Ronnie: you sure you dont want charlie giving you the eye

Ronnie: how it sounds

Joe: I’m alright, tah

Joe: pretty sure he’s over it now I’m enabling you

Ronnie: hes over everything thats not horse girls from kent but reckons the fucking lost causes are us

Joe: He clearly just gives a shit about appearances

Joe: looking nice, polite

Joe: they’ll never speak again, like

Ronnie: forget him

Ronnie: open the door

Joe: [do that boy]

Ronnie: [boop his little head scar as you come in like oh there it is]

Joe: [‘s’not even a good story’ and producing some takeaway moment from the kitchen as you go through ‘cos the dinner party was not heavy on the dinner bit]

Ronnie: [a look like ffs because people caring in any way ew no but we are gonna eat it because probably haven't since that Margate moment]

Joe: [shrugging like bitch I’m hungry as we tuck in, obviously]

Ronnie: [kick him while you've still got your big boots on but playfully not aggressively]

Joe: [😏 but in a more genuine way than that cocky face looks, I am vibing Chinese not that that matters but there we go]

Ronnie: [weirdly I also thought that maybe because it's one of the grossest haha but yeah eat your food lads]

Joe: [greasy greasy goodness, love the subtle shade if any of them come out for a cuppa or whatever like oh hello again lol]

Ronnie: [I hope it's oblivious Marc just living his life]

Joe: [that’d be most amusing, unbothered, casually]

Ronnie: [I just imagine them doing stuff to try and make him notice like when people stack stuff on a sleeping person but idk what you could do in that little kitchen]

Joe: [for sure, just being subtly annoying/weird and he is just like does not compute ‘cos we mind our own business, so childish]

Ronnie: [love that for you two]

Joe: [we stan the regression for you]

[ohtheseboysilove]

Too far [Roger Taylor x F!Reader]

Words : 2, 500 K +

Warnings : +18! Roger being simply a stupid tosser, angst tiny bit of drug 

Summary : Roger and Reader were having fun until he went too far with another girl.

Note : I can’t remember where this idea was coming from but suddenly I couldn’t stop write about that and this one-shot was born. I hope you enjoy it lovies !!

☀ Masterlist ☀  800 followers celebration !!!

Your relationship with Roger was…pretty unusual.

You weren’t together as in girlfriend-boyfriend way. Both of you never wanted to have this awkward conversation.

But that didn’t mean you were just fuck buddies. Clearly not.

Didn’t matter what the label of your relation was, it always went the same way between the two of you since you met few months ago.

You met Roger the most usual way possible. At a party. You were dancing with some guy when you saw him, his eyes already drinking every drop of you. He was charming and cute, you went back to his place and he fucked your brain out all night. You thought you would never see him again but you were wrong. You and him didn’t part away since that day. You spent most of your evenings at his place and he brought you at every Queen events.

You were always arriving somewhere together and, more important, always leaving together too.

The interesting part was the in-between. You wouldn’t spend the night glued to each other, it weren’t in, neither Roger or you, habit. You would dance around, flirting with a cute boy or two and Roger would sat somewhere, a girl in his lap. But both of your gazes would be mostly on each other, teasing and flirting from distance. You loved that part. The hungry look in his eyes, his hand caressing the random chick’s thigh on him, you knew the show was only for you.

Sometimes, if one of you felt cheeky enough, you would share a kiss with some stranger, girl or boy for you, it didn’t matter. Only girls for Roger, sadly.

When the drummer would think you and your pick of the night were a bit too cosy with each other, he would steal you away for a good shag in the bathroom, giving you a little reminder of who was going to bring you home later.

It was the same for you. If one of Roger’s groupie was too confident or touchy, you would tugged the blond’s hand and ignored the girl’s dirty look. You would walk with him into a dark hallway of whatever place you were for a hot making out session. It would probably ended up with one of you on your knees, not having any problem in giving a show to whoever could walk by.

And at the end of the night, the teasing was over as you would find each other easily, not giving a fuck about your toy of the night. Depending of how naughty you had been, he would fuck you hard and fast, making you cry and beg. Or nice and slow, edging both of you until you exploded.

Tonight wasn’t different. It was one of Freddie’s extravagant party, crowded and crazy. You and Roger had share a taxi to come from his place, you also had walk in together, letting everyone knew you were — kind of — with each other then had your own fun.

You were currently in the large living-room which had been transformed in a dance-floor for the night, grinding teasingly against a handsome guy, his large hands wrapped tightly around you waist.

Roger wasn’t far away, seating with the boys as it was a celebration for their latest album. A gorgeous blonde girl was perched on his lap, one arm around his neck and the other caressing his bare chest. She was beaming each time the drummer would drop a kiss on her neck, her cheeks pink and warm. It made you laugh. She must felt so important right now, on the drummer’s legs as he was talking to his band mates which were respectively with their wives. Except Freddie who was on his own, Paul Prenter looking from aside.

The groupie was making a quick chat with Chrissie, her fingers tugging softly on Roger’s locks and you didn’t like it. You absolutely loved the blond’s hairs and it was kind of your territory. Roger knew that very well and you smirked with satisfaction when he moved her hands away, resting it instead on his knee.

You shared a look with the drummer and everything he needed to know was in your gaze. You murmured something into the ear of your date of the night and he left quickly. You rolled your hips, much than necessary, and walked to the end of the room, laying against the wall before motioning to the drummer to come with your finger. You watched him with delight pushed away the girl and without a word, joining you.

“Hi gorgeous” He whispered, his palms cupping your face and giving you a dirty kiss, tongues massaging each other and pressed his body against your, making you quietly moaned. “Having fun with your chap tonight ?”

“Very much” You replied with a cocky smile, sliding one hand on his jaw and the other one under his shirt. Your pads followed his happy trail, stopping at his waistband, Roger’s teeth biting his bottom lip. “What about you ? You seemed awfully cosy with your little darling over there, playing wifey and all”

The drummer chuckled, his mouth leaning hot kisses on the skin of your neck. “It could be you, doll, but you don’t know how to behave in public” He breathed against your throat and you giggled, hand caressing his torso. “Naughty little thing you are” He groaned and went back on your lips for another filthy kiss, not caring to give a show of half of the guests.

“Ricky is back” You moaned, Roger’s teeth tugging on your lower lip but you eyes were on your toy of the night who was looking for you.

“Since when does they have a name ?” The drummer complained and pressed a hot hand on your bum. “I thought we could have some fun into one Freddie’s guest room” He whispered into your ear and you couldn’t miss the way his cock was poking against your thigh, making your core ached with need.

“Can’t now, love” You pouted and tugged on his hairs until he hissed slightly. How much this simple action was turning on the both you was completely ridiculous.

“Why not ? Come on, drop this asshole and let me take care of you, doll” The drummer purred against your parted lips and the invitation was really tempting.

“Ricky has a little something for me” You grazed your nails on his skull and watching him groaned at the feeling. “I see you later, love”

You shared a longing glance with Roger then he finally let you go, moving out of your way but not without slapping loudly your arse, making you shake with excitement.

You walked to Ricky, a smile breaking his face when he recognised you and he immediately opened his hand, the pill you asked for, resting on his palm.

Roger was back on his sofa and the groupie was equally happy as Ricky to see him back. None of them had see what happened between the two of you, obviously. She took back her seat on his lap, her neckline pressed right under the drummer nose, his eyes roaming without any shame into it. And she was loving the attention.

You took the small purple pill from Ricky’s hand and plopped it on your tongue before sharing the drug with the guy, in a deep and full of tongue, kiss. You could feel Roger’s burning gaze on you and it made you smile, your fingers finding the back off Ricky’s head, nails grazing against his skin.

The effect of the drug was almost immediate. Pupils fully dilated and clouded mind, you were floating in a comfortable trance. You were lazily and slowly dancing, your ass barely running against Ricky’s crotch but eyes on Roger, like always.

The drummer pinched his lips then moved his hands the arse’s girl, kneading it dirtily. She didn’t complain and quickly straddled his lap, her hips rolling against Roger’s.

The drummer threw you a challenging look and you smirked back, pressing roughly your bottom into Ricky.

It went on for several minutes, both of you pushing further to tease and make the other one break first.

Roger’s hand disappeared under the girl’s skirt and you slid the brunette hands on your breasts. There were few silent rules between the two of you : no intimate contact with bare skin. He could teased his groupie as long as it was through her clothes. It was the same for you, whoever was with you couldn’t go through your knickers and honestly, you didn’t want to. It was reserved for Roger only. It also worked for the orgasm, you wouldn’t give or received it from someone else expect each other. You never discussed these…rules but they naturally appeared in your relation. Lines to not cross. Same for fucking around, neither of you were sleeping with someone else. First of all because you were most of the time together, no time to see another man or woman. But mostly because neither of you wanted to, you kind of confessed it to Roger during a night, his head between your thighs and was very aroused to hear that you didn’t see other men since you met him. He assured you the other girls were boring and bland compared to you. This relationship wasn’t the most usual but it made you both happy, your teasing side perfectly fitting with each other and rather than hurt your relation, it only spiced it.

For a quick second, you grinned proudly. Roger was pushing the girl and standing up. You thought you just win but instead he threw you a dirty look and grabbed the groupie’s hand, tugging her into the closest bathroom. You rolled your eyes and sighed. This was cheating. You knew what would happen next. You would wait five little minutes, letting them make out a bit, giving hope to that girl. Then you would opened the door, batting your eyelashes and gave the drummer your prettiest does-eyes look and Roger would nicely showed to the groupie the exit of the bathroom. And it would end with you, bended against the marble counter, the blond’s cock deep buried inside you.

You were confident about it. Absolutely sure. That why you took your sweet time before meeting Roger in the bathroom, you knew he would be waiting for you, annoyed by how long you were taking to join him. After almost ten minutes, you made your way to the bathroom and opened the door, already smirking and imagining the deception on the girl’s face when the drummer would replace her with you.

“Alright, you had your fun but now—” The rest of your sentence died in your throat as you processed the scene in front of your eyes.

It was probably the last thing you excepted when you entered the bathroom, completely sure of what was going on. You were deeply wrong. Roger and the girl were here, you were right on this part but they weren’t making out, not at all. Instead, the drummer was leaning against the sink, his trousers and underpants pooling at his feet, one hand stabilising him and the other firmly gripping her bright blond hairs. Her mouth was wrapped around his cock, bobbing quickly her head under Roger’s hand, giving the rhythm, drool was rolling on her chin and her mascara was smudged under her eyes. He was face-fucking her harshly, little gagging noises leaving her throat and he smirked at you when he noticed your presence.

But you didn’t smirk back like you usually did. You couldn’t. Instead you look at him through glossy eyes, your heart breaking in your chest and hurt filling your face. Roger’ smirk instantly dropped from his features when he saw your reaction, certainly not the one he was expecting.

You didn’t say a word and turned around, leaving precipitously the bathroom, sobbing pathetically.

“(Y/N) ! Wait !” Roger yelled as he unceremoniously took his dick off the groupie’s mouth and clumsily slid back his clothes, leaving open his belt hanging around his waist.

You ignored his calls and almost ran outside, face burning with shame and hurt. You felt utterly stupid. Stupid because you really thought Roger Taylor could stay with one girl, with only you. Naive little girl you were. And now, the drummer saw you crying because of him. The thought of facing him now made your stomach churned.

You stood on the side of the road, ready to wave at the first taxi you would see, hoping Roger would just stay inside.

But of course, life wasn’t so easy. Only a minute or so later, the drummer was next to you, guilt painted all over his pretty face. He was panting and you didn’t want to know if it was because he ran after you or because he was fucking a girl right before. Probably both.

“(Y/N), I..”

“Piss off Roger” You coldly replied without looking at him. You could have been taking seriously if your cheeks weren’t covered in silent tears, soaking completely your face.

He sighed and rubbed his eyes harshly, clearly not knowing what to do. Your relationship was special and he didn’t think twice before fucking this girl, maybe he should have.

“Please, talk to me, doll” He begged and grabbed your hand but you immediately pushed him away, taking a step back from him.

“Too far Roger” You cried, anger boiling your blood. Angry against him but mostly against yourself. “You went fucking too far this time” You breathed painfully, the memories playing in your mind.

The drummer bowed his head, the tip of his ears reddening with shame. They were playing a dangerous game and Roger stupidly crossed the imaginary lines between teasing and hurting. He made you cry and he felt horrible about that, not sure how to fix that.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t think. I was jealous and—”

“So what ? You decided to shove your dick into this chick’s mouth to hurt me back ?” You exploded and furiously wiped your cheeks, probably looking like a raccoon at this point.

The blond didn’t reply because that absolutely what happened. But he didn’t mean to hurt you, only teased you back but now that he was thinking clearly, it was a dumb idea.

"You’re fucking stupid!” You sobbed and waved to the black cab driving through the street. "And I’m even more stupid ! I can’t believe I fell for you ! And now it’s back firing right in my face like everyone told me it would” You let out a little noise between a cry and a laugh and shook your head.

Roger briefly closed his eyes. Feelings. You had feelings for him and now he was understanding why you were so hurt by his actions. He felt even worse.

“Please, doll, we need to talk” He murmured as the cab parked in from of them.

“I know everything I need, Roger” You scolded and opened the door, ignoring his hand on your forearm. “ Don’t bother calling me tomorrow” You spatted ferociously and sat onto the car. "You went too far, Roger” You added weakly and slammed the door on his face, crying the rest of the drive.

Roger stupidly stood there, his heart beating awfully fast against his rib cage, eyes burning as he watched your car left, you words echoing in his mind :

Too fucking far, Roger.

#Roger Taylor x reader #Ben!Roger Taylor x reader #Roger Taylor

[amplesalty]

TV Binging: Pushing Daisies (2007-2009)

The facts were these...

At the risk of immediately dating this entry, the entire world is in the grip of a certain public health crisis right now and it seems everyone is taking that time to learn a new language, plunder their local supermarket for baking ingredients or just dive into that long neglected Netflix watchlist for something to pass the seemingly never-ending lockdown hours. For unknown reasons, my brain turned to the late noughties sensation of Pushing Daisies. Maybe because it’s relatively short, only two seasons totaling 22 episodes, or maybe it was a means of finally putting it to bed after two previous failed attempts to watch it all.

For the uninitiated, the show centers around Ned, a small business owner with the unique ability of being able to bring the dead back to life with just a touch of his finger, albeit with a few asterisks attached. Chief amongst them is that if he touches that person or thing again, they go back to being dead, permanently. And, if that person or things stays living for longer than sixty seconds then the power of the Universe, the Grim Reaper or Final Destination kicks in and takes something else in its place. This was something Ned learned at a very young age when his mother died suddenly of a brain aneurysm and in the act of bringing her back to life, he inadvertently killed the father of his neighbour and childhood sweetheart, Charlotte ‘Chuck’ Charles.

Cut to 20 years in the future, or 19 years, 34 weeks, 1 day and 59 minutes later as the narrator so handily informs us, young Ned has become ‘the pie-maker’, running The Pie Hole where he’s able to massively slash his overheads by being able to make delicious pies by simply bringing rotting fruit back to life to serve as his ingredients. It’s amazing the profits you can turn when you can entirely cut out the middle man of fruit suppliers isn’t it?

Plus he makes a little money on the side by helping a local PI named Emerson Cod. Why do all the hard work of investigating a crime when you can simply have a corpse brought back to life for sixty seconds, long enough to ask them who killed them.

It’s through this little business arrangement that Ned stumbles upon the unfortunate news that Chuck’s body was fished from the sea after she seemingly fell overboard on a cruise. With the prospect of a $50,000 reward for information on her passing, Cod is quick to get on the case but in the heat of the moment, Ned has other motives than money and neglects to re-dead his childhood crush.

Thus the series blossoms into what I would describe as a murder mystery meets fairy tale type show, with Chuck now tagging along as one of the Scooby Gang as they solve a new case every week. That’s probably a pretty apt comparison too considering Ned’s dog is often around too, a dog that he also brought back to life and has been keeping around for twenty years. Though, Ned isn’t a massive stoner and Cod doesn’t wear an ascot. He does have a couple of knitted gun holsters though if you want to equate that as his ‘fruity’ accessory.

The reward is something that feels a little shoehorned in early on, they always seem to go out of their way to make a point of saying something like ‘police are baffled and are offering a reward that leads to an arrest’ just so there’s a reason for Cod to get involved. It does eventually settle into someone coming to Cod directly to hire his services, whether that be a grieving widow or family member of a falsely accused wanting to clear their relatives name. That just made a bit more sense to me. You kinda have to look past the fact that the police never seem to be actively involved in any of these cases as well, allowing Cod and co to just swan around doing their thing until they’re able to turn in the real killer at the end of the episode and cash their reward. It always seems that they have a knack of turning up like two minutes too later to someones murder. They do make a point of turning this on its head in one episode though when they find Ned at a murder scene and figure him as the killer.

And maybe it’s just me being a chauvinistic pig but good lord you cannot escape boobs in this show. Or maybe not just me, punch ‘Pushing Daisies cleavage’ into Google dot com and it looks like a few people were talking about this at the time. It felt like one of those things that, once I noticed it, I just couldn’t unsee it. Women always leaning over or camera shots from above looking down their dresses. Just cleavage everywhere. It seems to come up at slightly inappropriate times, like Chuck’s aunts who are socially repressed and virtual shut ins but are stilled dressed up the nines, boobs pushed up and spilling out.

It kinda makes sense for Olive though, waitress at the Pie Hole and with a thing for Ned so she’s just trying to seduce him but without much luck. Doesn’t mean they don’t go out of their way to show off the twins outside the restaurant though such as when Olive takes ownership of the swimming costumes that Chuck’s aunts used to use as part of their synchronized swimming stage show.

Speaking of Kristin Chenoweth’s set of lungs, she gets to show off her musical background a few times throughout the show by breaking into song . It feels a little out of place as there isn’t any other musical acts in the show but she does a great job.

A more family friendly point of design is just how beautiful this show looks at times. Like, pretty much the first thing you see in episode one is young Ned and his dog running through down a vast hillside of flowers. It’s a really vibrant use of colour that runs throughout the whole show, whether it’s sets or costumes, and really adds to this whole fantasy vibe aided by the fantastical nature of Ned’s special power.

Businesses that pop up as part of the story have these grand, bespoke designed buildings that seem like they would never logically exist in the real world like this honey business with a beehive theme...

...and interior decorations  centered around hexagons.

Even something as clinical as the city morgue almost leaps off the screen with a bold red and white striped building. Though, I feel having an entrance labelled ‘deliveries’ brings back a little bit of the coldness you would expect. They might be dead but give them some dignity, they’re not pizzas.

You occasionally get these childhood fantasy sequences as well from when Ned and Chuck would play together as kids, imagining the world in claymation before they would inevitably destroy it as they pictured themselves as giant monsters.

It ties into the characters as well, everyone wearing very colourful clothes except for Ned who only ever seem to dress in blacks or greys.

Except for when he has to act under false pretenses, pretending to be someone else in order to get information from someone or to distract a suspect. To play amateur psychologist for a moment, with someone neurotic as Ned, it’s like a visual representation of his inner self no longer confined, no longer suppressed under the weight of the problems he’s bottling up and pushing deep down within himself. For a brief moment he’s able to break free from the shackles of his black and white world and into rich and living colour. It’s like a strange inverse of how things might usually work where a splash of colour would make someone or something stand out amongst an otherwise drab background. Somehow Ned’s lack of colour draws the eye.

On a more technical level, it is often quite obvious how superimposed the actors are against the fancy backgrounds and that can be a tad distracting. The editing between scenes can sometimes lend to the creative feel of the series, there are a few episodes where instead of the usual wipes you get something more appropriate to the story of the episode. For instance, in one episode centered around a magic theatre show, the transitions are the closing and opening of the stage curtains. It’s a little touch but it adds to the whimsy.

It all adds up to what might the most cutest, adorable thing I’ve ever seen, for the first few episodes at least. Maybe it’s a case of getting used to the whole thing but early on there’s a bit of a feeling out process (or non feeling as the case may be) between Ned and Chuck, the smiles they share or the ways they have to vicariously show their affection by hugging Cod. Him being the unwilling third party in this unconventional relationship doesn’t help take the edge of what might be a saccharine affair. There is a slight sense of ‘will they, wont they’ about Ned and Chuck,, subverting the usual TV payoff of a big kiss by doing so through plastic wrap.Makes you wonder how they explore their other urges under these circumstances. Or maybe that’s just the lockdown thirst kicking in again...

I think the distance they have plays with your head a little bit. There’ a coyness to it that puts you in mind of a bunch of awkward kids at a school dance too nervous to dance with each other. Or maybe Ned standing two feet away from Chuck, holding his own hand and pretending it’s Chuck’s is just an eerie glimpse into the post apocalyptic world we’ll have to enter at some point and all our conventions of greetings and physical contact have been shattered.

For the rotating cast of peripheral characters the show goes through as each investigation comes and goes, it’s nice that a few a started to re-appear now and again, such as Paul Rubens’ Oscar, Christine Adams’ Simone or David Arquette’s Randy Mann. That last one is a name, not a description (a Randy Man, a Macho Savage). It helps build this broader world and story elements, albeit I’m torn on the latter. Oscar, for instance, suspects something is not quite right about Chuck and she worries that he’s going to uncover her secret. It never really goes anywhere though and, whilst you could argue that like any good mystery there is the odd red herring along the way, it still feels like a little bit of a bait and switch considering that are other things in the story that don’t get paid off.

I’ll have to look into the timeline for how the series came to a close because it definitely seems like they knew considering there’s a very tacked on epilogue to the final episode that tries to tie up some of the loose ends, but there are still some left that aren’t. Namely the presence of Ned’s father that he had thought had been long gone for some twenty years but had been closer than he thought the entire time, with the show giving periodical teases of him sitting in the Pie Hole or a more thrilling cameo as he sweeps in to rescue Ned and Olive from their untimely deaths as they cling to a branch on the edge of a cliff.

The fact that he does so whilst wearing a mask and wearing gloves is more of a way to lead Ned towards certain conclusions on the identity of this mystery man but I can’t help but wonder what the implications are on the gloves in particular. The mechanics of Ned’s power seem to be that contact in order to bring the dead back to life has to be made skin to skin, so maybe Ned inherited this power from his father and his father brought Ned back to life at some point? Maybe him abandoning Ned at a young age was done to eliminate any risk of him accidentally touching him again and making death permanent? I’m not sure that would hold up considering he later walks out on his new family and twin boys so this would require three different people to all have seemingly no memory of their own near death experience. Maybe it’s all been repressed, that wouldn’t be surprising considering all the childhood angst present in this show.

You know what else I’m confused on? The distance between Coeur d’Couers, where Chuck’s aunts live, and the Pie Hole. Maybe I’m misremembering or misheard but I’m sure in one episode the narrator mentions that they’re 161 miles apart, yet characters seem to go between the two like they’re five minutes away. One of the aunts arranges a secret date at the Pie Hole later on in the same night but that’s a pretty massive distance to cover considering they make a point that they’re only traveling on buses. I know travel is all relative to American’s considering the massive size of their country but that’s a pretty ridiculous distance to cover for a slice of pie.

#TV Binging #Pushing Daisies

[harryandmolly]

When the World Stops Turning - Chapter 17

summary: a love story in two voices - cowritten with @achinglyshawn

warnings: Language

word count: 6.3k

“Hey, babe, can you grab that thing… the… the whatever over there?” Lydia mutters, trying to look behind her from atop a stepladder in her heels as she navigates a platter down from a cupboard.

She can’t remember the name for bottle opener. Her chest is a little tight with anxiety, even with him around to lighten her load.

The thing. Shawn spins on his heel and spots a stack of plates, a vase of flowers, and a bottle opener. He glances back at Lydia, and figures the "thing" probably isn't plates or flowers. He grabs the bottle-opener and smiles a little. He knows she's nervous.

This is her first party at Hamilton House. She misses Alice so much she can’t breathe. It’s especially difficult now that Lydia’s finally gotten around to redecorating the master. She couldn’t keep it as a shrine to her grandmother forever and decided it would be nice for her and Shawn to have some place of their own to stay, some place that felt like them.

"Bottle opener, I think, might be the words you're looking for," he quips, careful not to be too snarky but also trying to keep the mood light.

The tension is a little more heightened today because she brought her popstar boyfriend back into her life and this time, it’s permanent. Her mother, through the grapevine, is unhappy. Her father is quietly elated. Nick and Paul are cautiously optimistic. And no one else matters to Lydia.

But she remains tense and hopes Shawn doesn’t take it personally. Her mother’s like the wicked witch of the west -- you can feel the storm coming and Lydia bristles every time.

Shawn is aware her mother is none-too pleased that Lydia's back with him, and that she's made over her grandmother's bedroom into a master suite for them, like the Hamilton House is becoming their house together, instead of a museum for Alice's life. Shawn guesses she's even less pleased that the baby shower isn't just Lydia's party, but officially Lydia-and-Shawn's party.

He knows he isn't the kind of man Lydia's mother wants in their family. He doesn't really care. Lydia wants him around, and that's all that matters, as far as he's concerned. Their months apart made him realize that he really, really doesn't care what outsiders think about their relationship, even Lydia's own family. Even his own family, to be honest, though his parents have been pretty great. Liyah's been a brat, but he knows she just cares about his well being in that defensive, sibling way. She'll get over it eventually. Shawn slips the bottle opener into his pocket so he can get a hand on the small of Lydia's back, the other hand steadying the heavy platter as she climbs down the step ladder. "How about you let me get the high up stuff instead of trying to climb mountains in those heels, yeah?"

Shawn’s hand on the small of her back steadies her in more ways than one. She lands back on the hardwood with one hand on the platter and the other on the counter. She sets it down and sighs. Even in her heels she stands several inches beneath him. She reaches out and pops a kiss to his cheek. “Deal. I knew there was a reason I’m dating the beanstalk from “Jack and the Beanstalk”,” she teases, striding toward the kitchen out of the storage pantry. Shawn and Lydia have been in Nantucket for two days getting ready for the party and enjoying each other’s company. The first night they slept in the new master suite, she barely slept at all, and not in the fun way. But the second night, Shawn held her tight to keep her from wriggling and gave her a couple orgasms to help her sleep. The curse broke. The doorbell rings. Lydia’s eyes lift. She looks to Shawn. “Ok, wow, we’re doing this,” she breathes, wandering toward the door. It’s Bill and Jen. Lydia lifts a stilted smile onto her face. “Hi.”

Shawn’s hot on her heels as Lydia goes to the front door. He can practically feel the anxiety radiating off of her. He presses a hand to the small of her back, a gentle attempt at anchoring her, reminding her she’s not alone. But maybe it’s him being around that’s making her anxious in the first place. Like, this wouldn’t be such a big deal if he weren’t there to receive frozen looks from her mother. He almost pulls away from her and steps back. He almost runs away to hide in the bedroom. He almost thinks, hey, maybe she’s better off without him. But he knows that’s not true. He presses closer, instead. Lydia opens the door. Bill’s eyes light up when he sees them standing together, whilst Jen looks like she might be sick. He doesn’t focus on her.

Reluctantly, Lydia leaves the comfort of Shawn’s body heat to hug her delighted looking dad. She snuggles her face into his chest. “Hi daddy,” she hums. “Ditty,” he greets with a laugh in his voice. She’s glad to hear it. He smiles as Bill pulls Lydia into a hug, then goes for Shawn next, wrapping Shawn in his arms like he’s the man’s long lost son. Shawn can’t stifle the surprised laugh as he hugs Bill back.

Lydia tries not to grin like an idiot when he hugs Shawn. She totally fails. “Thank you for doing this with Lydia,” Bill says as he pulls away, “Nick and Paul are going to love it.” Shawn can feel his cheeks flush and tries not to be bothered by Jen’s cold stare, but he can’t help the way his skin crawls. “Not that Lydia needed me or anything,” Shawn starts, glancing at his girlfriend with a soft smile as they step out of the doorway, “but I liked helping. I think it’ll be a fun afternoon.”

She makes eye contact with Jen and leans in to kiss her cheek. “Hey, Mom.” Jen plasters on a tired half smile and lets Lydia lead them back inside. “Nick and Paul are on their way with Ben. They invited a few friends from Boston, did they tell you?” Jen nods coldly and looks around like she’s inspecting the place for signs that Shawn has changed something, messed with tradition. But the only thing that’s different is Lydia. She takes his hand as they sit on the couch, a mix of soft adult contemporary playing quietly, wine chilling in ice buckets by the spread on the table. Lydia did a fine job. She’s proud of it. She’s proud of him. She’s about to speak when the door rings again. “Baby, can you get that?” she whispers, angling for some time alone with her parents.

Lydia asks him to get the door and calls him baby in front of her parents. His heart stumbles in his chest and he smiles easily.

He looks down at her, says, “Yeah, Lyds, of course,” and brushes a kiss against her temple before he heads for the door. He didn’t mean to kiss her in front of her parents. It was like a reflex really, but he doesn’t regret it. He’s not backing down from a fight, if that’s what Jen wants. He’s not gonna pretend he’s not totally fucked for Lydia just because her mum hates him.

Shawn kisses her and Lydia sees her mother’s face sour slightly. She ignores it, knowing she better pick her battles today. She figures it’s probably Nick and Paul with Ben so Lydia remains positive as she regards her parents. “Missed you guys. It’s been a while.” “Been too long, Dit,” her father says over a smile, “Season tickets for the O’s aren’t the same without you, angel.” Lydia beams. “I think I was the good luck charm, they really suck this season.” Jen’s eyes glaze over. “You look happy, little girl,” her dad says. Lydia looks between them both meaningfully. “I am. I’m very very happy.” Bill grins and nods. Jen remains stony. Shawn finds Paul, Nick, and the baby when he opens the door and a smile splits his lips. “Hey, Shawn,” Nick says coolly, giving him a nod as he walks past with Ben strapped to his chest in one of those baby backpack things. He doesn’t give Shawn time to fawn over the freshly baked human, and instead he’s got Paul pulling him into a hug and saying, “Glad to have you back, man, Lydia was going crazy without you.” Shawn laughs as they part and head for the living room, shaking his head a little. “I won’t tell her you said that. She thinks she hid her misery from the outside world well.”

Nick walks around the corner with an infant strapped to his chest. The room melts. “Oh my god,” Jen gasps, “That’s my grandson.” Lydia blinks as the baby squirms against Nick. That’s her nephew. Nick is smiling bigger than she’s ever seen. They crowd around to fuss about the baby. Lydia’s eyes fill with tears and she giggles uncontrollably when little Ben blinks at her. She reaches up and kisses Nick’s cheek. “Congrats, Dad,” she says softly. He smiles down at her. “I’m so stupid happy,” he replies.

Lydia looks like she’s about to cry over the baby when Shawn walks into the room. Paul’s gone to say hello to his parents, so Shawn’s left alone to watch his girlfriend coo at her nephew and hug her brother like maybe he’s not as indifferent as she thinks. Shawn doesn’t know, though. He’s not like that with Aaliyah. Everything between him and his little sister matters so much. They’re best friends. That’s why it sucks that she’s being such a pill over Lydia. He doesn’t get why Liyah can’t forgive her like he did. Except he does. He hates the idea of anyone breaking his little sister’s heart, knows he’d hate whoever did it and that it would be really fucking hard to see her get back with whoever the dick was. But relationships look different to the people inside of them, and that’s what Liyah doesn’t get. She can’t know why Lydia did what she did, not the way Shawn does. Shawn sees Lydia, even if it took him months of licking his own wounds before he could. He gets it now though, and he knows that if Aaliyah ever took someone back, it’d be for the right reasons, and maybe then she’d understand. He just wishes she could understand right now. They’d really get along, Lydia and Aaliyah. He wants to go up to her, pull her into a hug and then hold onto her for the rest of the night, but he’s trying not to get in the way. Even if Jen and Nick didn’t hate him, he’d never take her away from her family.

Lydia feels warm and fuzzy after her moment with Nick. She moves aside so they can maneuver Ben out of his carrier for Jen to hold him. Pretty soon everyone’s overwhelmed tears become laughter and party chat. Lydia finds Shawn hanging back by the couch. She pushes hair out of her face and shuffles over to him. No one’s watching them so she kisses him gently, taking his hands. Paul wanders over and tugs at Lydia’s hair. “Little Ditty is an Aunt now.” Lydia beams and smiles at Shawn. “I’m so excited. I’m going to spoil the shit out of this kid.” “And if we screw him up, you can give him therapy,” Paul chuckles. Then, “It’s nice to see you guys together again. Feels right.” He sighs, sentimental and mushy with the new addition to his family.

Paul acts like he and Lydia are meant to be and it makes his cheeks burn. It’s nice to have Paul on his team. Not that there are teams or whatever, but it feels like there are. The way Jen watches him carefully from across the room makes him feel like prey she’s stalking. Like she’ll pounce any minute, and that’ll be it, he’s done, fur cold before he even has the chance to run away. Paul and Lydia make him feel safe though, which he feels like a baby for because he should be able to stick up for himself. To stand up for their relationship if need be. But he also knows Jen would never, like, confront him. She’ll be passive aggressive again, but not unless she can manage to corner Shawn alone. Or she’ll yell at Lydia when they’re alone, except maybe this time, Shawn won’t linger on the sidelines. He’s not sure she really has the confidence to take her on. She’s just a mom, but she seems so much worse than even the most vicious of paparazzo digging for gossip and drama. Lydia kisses Shawn’s hand and nods as the doorbell rings again. She reluctantly leaves him to welcome more guests until their full party of 18-20 family members has filled the room.

Lydia leaves his side and he’s tempted to scurry after her like a needy puppy. Instead he begs off to the kitchen and brings out the heaviest platter of finger foods, the one Lydia acted like she was gonna bring out but then got distracted by flowers instead. He knows she left it for him because she knows he’d insist on doing it himself. He likes how well they know each other, even in the littlest of ways. Shawn thinks it’s the little ways that count the most, anyway. He can’t find Lydia with a perfunctory scan of the room, probably because she’s so tiny, so he breaks the cardinal rule of hosting and takes the first (second, and third) lemon tart from the dessert dish and glues himself to the corner, keeping a dutiful eye on any champagne glasses that might go empty.

Lydia really likes playing hostess. She’s wearing her grandmother’s pearls and walking around amongst her family making sure everyone has what they need. But there’s a piece of her that feels like she’s a little girl playing dress up. She doesn’t feel that way when she looks at Shawn. He makes her feel like a woman. His woman. Their relationship feels more adult now, she knows it’s the right decision to have a party like this be their reintroduction to her family. Even if her mom has been chillier than usual all night. Lydia notes a lack of mushroom mini quiches and knows she has more warming in the oven so she takes the tray and ducks into the kitchen. She feels Jen behind her and bristles. “Hi Mom, you need anything?” Lydia asks, voice light and breathy as she places mini quiches onto the platter. “Lydia, this is childish. Don’t you feel silly? Bringing him here amongst all of this? You know this isn’t fair to him,” Jen snaps. Lydia sighs and tightens her fingers into a fist against the counter.

Shawn sees Lydia disappear into the kitchen with the empty quiche platter. He’s about to follow her, to help her with whatever and maybe sneak a few kisses, when he sees Jen slip out first. Now it’s Lydia that’s the prey. He feels a pinch in his heart, a subconscious need to defend. Lydia can take care of herself, but Shawn still wants to protect her. So he follows them towards the kitchen, but hangs back in the butler’s pantry when he hears Jen already chiding her. He doesn’t get what she means, that this isn’t fair to him. How’s it not fair? It’s fun, actually, throwing a party with Lydia. He thinks they work pretty well together. He doesn’t burst in right away because he figures Lydia’s got a rebuttal up her sleeve. Lydia always knows what to say, and if he’s being honest, Shawn’s still trying to come up with the best words to defend himself with. He figures it won’t hurt to let Lydia give it a head start.

Lydia drops the last mini quiche onto the platter and spins on her heel. “What’s not fair, Mom? He’s not here against his will. He’s... he’s proud to be here with me. He loves me.” Her voice goes soft at the end. Jen sees an opening. “Jesus, Lydia. What happened to you? You were so driven. You had a career ahead of you. What happens now? You marry a pop star and live a life of fame and glamour?” “What the hell do you mean ‘had’ a career? I’m still in school. I’m not ditching my life plan because I’m in love. He’s totally supportive of my career objectives!” Lydia cries, beginning to sound a little hysterical. “You look ridiculous. Don’t you care?” Jen growls. Lydia shakes her head. “You’re such a fucking snob. You wouldn’t have confronted me with this if I decided to quit school when I was with Carson. All you care about is how this looks. He’s a musician, Mom! He’s not a criminal!”

Shawn doesn’t want to hear Jen berate Lydia anymore. She hasn’t even said much, but what she’s said and how she’s said it, it’s enough to have Shawn chomping at the bit to get in there and save his girl. Not that she needs saving. But she shouldn’t have to do this alone. “Lydia,” he says as he walks into the kitchen, and he tries to go for soothing but he knows he sounds angry. “You don’t have to defend me to her, it seems like she’s already made up her mind.” He reaches Lydia and slips his hand into hers, pulling it up so he can brush his lips across her knuckles. He knows she likes that. His gaze flicks to Jen, “Haven’t you? You’ll do anything to make Lydia feel bad about me because she’s not doing exactly what you want her to do. Because I’ll never be who you want.” Jen looks like she’s going to interrupt, but he doesn’t let her. “I think you should know that’s pretty shitty. You might think you’re doing it out of love, or whatever, but manipulating people, your daughter, isn’t really how you show them you love them. If you really were trying to do that, you’d be happy for Lydia. For us.”

Lydia tries not to let her jaw drop when Shawn comes in and coolly confronts her mother. She didn’t mean for him to hear this but she’s a little glad he did. She wants him to know she’ll fight for him now whenever she needs to. Jen’s face goes red. Lydia stares at Shawn as he speaks. Her heart is racing so fast she’s sure it’ll explode. When he finishes his well-delivered speech, she squeezes his hand and looks back to her mother. She’s shaking her head. “You two... you may think you can make each other happy. You may think love is enough. But you have to want the same things. You have to have the same values, the same upbringings or your relationship is... it’s doomed. You’re both acting like children.” “Mom, you don’t know us. You—“ Lydia’s voice cracks and she knows she’s headed for tears, “you barely know me. How can you pretend to know our future together?”

He hates it when Lydia cries. He’s pretty mad now, since Jen seems to always be making her cry. He wishes Jen could grow up, because she’s really the one who’s acting like a baby. Souring everything around her just because it’s not exactly how she wants it. Pathetic. He won’t tell Lydia he thinks her mum is kind of pathetic, but he does. Jen’s gaze softens for a moment as he daughter starts to cry. She opens her mouth to respond. “Mom, that’s enough.” Lydia looks to the doorway. Nick is standing there, sans Ben, looking tired. Lydia blinks.

Shawn pulls Lydia into his arms and turns away from Jen, stroking a hand through Lydia’s hair. He sees Nick out of the corner of his eye, but he doesn’t really care. He pulls back from Lydia, but only slightly. He has just enough room to tilt her face up towards his and run his thumb along her damp cheek. “We could do presents now, if you want,” he says with a gentle smile. He looks to Nick and shrugs a little, “That could be fun. But it’s up to you, Dad.” Lydia leans into Shawn’s touch. If possible, Jen’s face sours more. She nods at Shawn’s suggestion.

“Yeah, Shawn, thanks,” Nick murmurs, casting a disapproving glance at his mother.

Shawn wants Nick to like him. He wants Jen to be the odd one out so maybe she’ll realize how stupid she’s being. He doesn’t even get her argument. Lydia and Shawn have the same values. Be good people. Tell the truth. Make kids smile. Make each other smile. Be thankful for what you’ve got, and don’t stop striving for what you want. He doesn’t know what more there is, except that he does know Jen cares about status. And Shawn’s status as a celebrity is, apparently, very tacky. But all of that’s so shallow, thinking about people that way. People are more than their families, more than their bloodlines, and he’s more than a celebrity. Lydia is more than a Hamilton, even though she’s proud to be one.

Lydia looks back at Jen once more. She sniffs gently and wipes under her eyes but she knows it’s no use — her eyes get even brighter green when she cries and her face goes all blotchy. It’s not cute. She lets Shawn lead her back toward the party but she tugs on him to stop. She swipes at her eyes again and pulls him into her arms. In heels, she comes up almost to his chin. She tucks herself into him, seeking comfort only he can provide. “I’m sorry. You deserve to be adored by my family. If it were anyone else, you would be. But you picked the girl with the snobbiest family on the eastern seaboard.” She chuckles but it’s wet and lifeless. She closes her eyes and inhales, rememorizing his scent. “I don’t know if this is ever going to get easier. What if it doesn’t?” She croaks.

“I don’t care.” It comes out easily enough. He doesn’t care. Sure, he wants Lydia’s family to like him, but if they don’t, so what? All that matters is if Lydia likes him. “I just want you to like me, Lyds,” he murmurs as he holds her tight, taking a step back so he can lean against the wall. “I also just want you to be happy,” he says, and he realizes she might not be happy if her mother can’t figure out a way to get over herself. “I’m really sorry your family is making you so sad because of me. Well, your mum.” He tips his head and studies her flushed, tear stained face. She’s always so pretty. Too pretty for a plain guy like him. He hums, sounding a little sad while he runs his fingers down the back of her neck and says, “I’m sorry I don’t know how to fix it.”

Lydia’s eyes flutter as he caresses her neck. She comes up on her toes to kiss him. “I know you are. But you can’t fix it. Maybe time will.” She thinks about when Nick brought Paul home for the first time. She was young enough that she doesn’t remember it being a big deal but Paul tells her Jen was chilly at best. So maybe there’s hope. After a couple more seconds of recovery, she leads him back to the party. She sits a concerned looking Paul next to Nick while Bill holds the baby. The presents are lavish, to say the least. Not your average baby shower kinda stuff. Lydia’s most excited about the gift she picked out to give to them from herself and Shawn. “You’re gonna love it,” Lydia sing-songs, wrapping herself up in Shawn’s arms as Nick and Paul open the gift. It’s the first gift she’s given on their behalf. Feels like a very couple-y thing to do. Nick and Paul open the box and discover an antique rattle Paul showed her years ago when they were first talking about adopting. Lydia bought it at the shop and held onto it ever since. “Oh my god,” Paul cries, running over to hug them both.

Shawn doesn’t feel like it’s a gift he can really put his name on. It was all Lydia. So he paid for the cake and the catering and the flowers and whatever else Lydia could think of. Not that Paul and Nick need to know that. But he couldn’t let Lydia give them such a sentimental gift and slap his name on it too. He wanted to feel like he really contributed, even if no one ever finds out.

Lydia loves watching Nick and Paul so happy. They kiss and cuddle with the baby on the sofa, the stars of the night as everyone stands around and watches adoringly. Lydia feels her face grow warm when Nick announces another gift labeled as being from Shawn and Lydia. She tilts her head to glance up at him and then looks back to the family of the evening.

He also got them a fancy baby mobile he saw in the fancy Baby Boutique in town, the only one on the island. It’s not Nantucket themed, but it’s nautical and it seems like something blue bloods would like, in the same way they like Vineyard Vines and Seersucker. He didn’t tell Lydia about the gift, but he signed her name to it, too, like proper couples always do. He’s in no rush for them to open it though - they’ll find it when they find it - so Shawn stays planted by Lydia with his arms wrapped around her, chin resting on her pretty little head. Nick opens the box to see a beautiful sea-themed mobile to go over Ben’s crib. Lydia beams as Nick and Paul coo over it and shout their praise across the room to them. “Sneaky,” she giggles, pecking at Shawn’s jaw to reward him for his thoughtfulness. She snuggles into his arms and watches as they open the last few gifts and start to mingle again.

Shawn’s cheeks flush when she calls him out on the gift, but he knows her ‘sneaky’ comment really means ‘good job.’ He tilts his head so he can nuzzle his nose against her temple, brushing a kiss to the apple of her cheek. “You think maybe that’ll be us someday?” Lydia whispers, feeling her stomach lurch at the thought. She wants it so bad. She didn’t realize how much until this moment, but here she is imagining them sitting together and staring down at someone that’s theirs, someone they can love together forever. The question Lydia asks has his stomach swooping low in his abdomen and he can feel the tips of his ears heat up. He swallows thickly as he tightens his arms around her. His voice is low, gentle in her ear when he speaks. “Do you want it to be?” He does. He wants a family with Lydia so badly. He’s always wanted to be a dad, but it’s never felt like a real possibility, something actually within his grasp, until he met her. He bites his lip as he waits for an answer, nervous even though he doesn’t think she would’ve asked the question if it were something she didn’t want.

Shawn’s body goes stiff around her and she doesn’t know exactly how to translate that in her head so she just decides to be honest because that’s what they’re doing now. “Absolutely. If that’s what you want too. I’m in, babe,” she tells him quietly, feeling her cheeks pink up.

She says ‘Absolutely’ like it’s the most obvious thing in the world, that she would want a baby with him. Like she’s been thinking about it for some time now. His heart buzzes like a hummingbird in his chest. The smile that splits his lips is a little ridiculous, but he can’t help it. He wants everything with Lydia.

She turns to face him and kisses him because fuck whoever’s watching and judging. She’s so happy. And she gets to make him happy too.

He’s about to spin her around in his arms and kiss her, but she beats him to it. She’s always faster than him. He kind of loves it. He drags his fingers through her hair and tilts her head back, deepening the kiss. He loves her so much, he really doesn’t care who’s watching. He doesn’t know if anyone is, since they’re tucked in the corner, but he has a feeling Jen’s eyes might be on them- on him, trying to shoot him with laser vision she doesn’t have. He can’t be bothered to pull away to check.

Lydia has to be the one to pry herself away from him, but she seals it with a final peck on his lips because she doesn’t really want to be apart from him at all. The party continues. Jen remains thankfully stable. Bill is effusive and barely letting go of his grandson except for the 15 minutes that Lydia steals him away to whisper in his ear and giggle when he squirms against her chest as she sways with him. Her feet hurt in her heels so she sits and drinks champagne and talks to Paul’s parents who have always liked her. She introduces them to Shawn, who delights them because Paul’s parents are actually really cool and fun and his mother Sharon knows Shawn’s music so they chat. Lydia notices Nick and Jen talking in the corner while Bill bobs around the room with the baby. Lydia never feels settled when Nick and Jen are conspiring. As the evening is wrapping up, Lydia is helping bring bags into Paul’s car when she overhears Jen talking to one of their family friends. “...it’s just not going to last. She already left him once. She’s always been flighty. I just hope, god, I hope he doesn’t get a ring on her finger or everything gets more complicated. Because of course we’d insist on a prenup, naturally, what with—“ That’s enough. Lydia steps in to make herself seen. “Mom, it’s time to go.”

He’s trailing a few feet behind Lydia with some of the heavier gifts when he hears Jen somewhere behind him. She’s standing in the corner of the porch huddled with a family friend Shawn doesn’t know. Her words cut through him, striking and hot, and he’s not sure he’s ever been this pissed before in his life. He grits his teeth and slides the presents into the back of Paul’s car when he see Lydia brush past him to stalk back up the stairs. She stops in front of Jen, and he knows from her tone that Lydia is fed up. He turns and runs up after her, stopping a few steps below. He’s not sure if he should get in the middle again. He might yell if he does, and that wouldn’t do anything to help his case. But it’s nagging at him, the bullshit Jen thinks, so he pipes up anyway. “I don’t want anyone’s money, let alone Lydia’s. I make more than enough money as it is. So if that’s what you’re worried about then— well, you don’t have to be. I’ll sign whatever stupid papers you want.” He’s not very eloquent when he can’t edit and revise and ask Teddy for advice. But he says what he means, he tells the truth, and that should be enough.

Lydia feels Shawn behind her tensed like an animal readying for a fight. She swallows and raises her chin at Jen. The family friend ducks her head in embarrassment. She excuses herself with a wilting smile to Lydia and a weak “thank you.” Lydia tries not to bare her teeth at her. Jen, Shawn and Lydia are left. Jen straightens up and glances off to see Bill readying to head into their guest house. Lydia has half a mind to tell her to leave, to find somewhere else to stay tonight. But she’s trying to be mature. Jen shoots them both a look. “We’re leaving early tomorrow. We’ll be gone before breakfast.” “Fine,” Lydia replies coldly. There are no more tears to be shed here. She’s resigned. And she’s angry. Jen leaves. Lydia is breathing hard and gripping the bannister. She looks over at Shawn again. “I’m sorry she said that. I’m sorry she’s like that.”

Lydia’s apologizing but Shawn doesn’t think there’s anything to apologize for. Her mum’s actions aren’t her fault. He shakes his head and reaches for her waist, spinning her around gently. He curls his fingers behind her ear, tucking her hair back as he shakes his head, “Don’t be sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry she thinks it’s okay to treat you like that.” He sighs gently, nudging his head forward to slant his lips over hers. He kisses her slowly, like they have all the time in the world to stand on these stairs and get lost in each other. They don’t, but sometimes a moment with Lydia feels so cosmically huge. Shawn thinks it’s the closest thing to experiencing forever that he’ll get.

Shawn’s kiss stills her. She drops her hands to his waist and sighs into his mouth. He quiets her rage and reminds her without words about what’s important.

He pulls away finally, frowning a little as he studies her face. “I don’t want her to ruin a great day for you.”

Her lips follow his when he pulls away. She smiles and licks them, shaking her head.

“She didn’t. She may have wanted to. But I don’t care what she wants, not right now. I love her. I always will. But I think I’d like to marry you someday and she can’t change that.”

She’s never said it out loud to him before. In the grand scheme of things, their time together has been relatively short. But she’s been with him and she’s been without him and she knows what she wants, what she needs.

She says the word ‘marry’ and it feels like his world stops. He’s young and he knows it, but he’s known for a year now that Lydia is the woman he’s gonna marry, even if it’s not for a while. He’s hers, utterly. “You wanna marry me, Hamilton?” He asks with a smirk, but the croak in his voice betrays him. He’s been too scared to bring it up. He’s glad she got there first. He might’ve waited years before saying anything if she never did. He’s always trying to grow up for her, to get better and be better and be who she deserves, but more and more he realizes she already thinks he’s that guy. So maybe he is. He thinks she might feel just as young as he does sometimes, like they’re just playing adults, and not the real thing. He likes that they’re both ready to start learning about life together, instead of pretending like they’ve already got it down to save face.

He’s teasing her so she knows she hasn’t freaked him out, though she didn’t think she would. She grins and rubs her nose up against his. She wraps her arms around his back and shrugs playfully.

“Still considering my options. Can’t say a big white wedding here at the house in the fall when the leaves start to turn hasn’t popped into my head.”

She tries to joke around but her cheeks are flushed and her lips are spread and she looks really happy. His stomach flips as he thinks, It’s me, I made her smile like that. He’s so fucking lucky.

She can’t stop smiling so she’s not pulling off her joking nonchalance very well. “Not gonna change my name though. Or at least, well, I’ve thought about Lydia Hamilton-Mendes. Lydia Hamilton-Mendes, Ph.D. How’s that sound?”

She beams at him. She already knows how it sounds.

Their noses brush, just barely, as he shakes his head. “No way,” he murmurs, twirling some of her hair around his fingers, “Lydia Mendes-Hamilton. Rolls off the tongue better that way. And then I can be Shawn Mendes-Hamilton.” He blushes a little as he presses his lips together, cheeks plumping as the corners of his lips pull up. He can practically hear his heart beating in his chest, he’s so nervous from this conversation. Not bad nervous, good nervous. Excited nervous. Happy nervous. He can’t wait to really start his life with her. He’s such a goddamn sap.

Lydia laughs. “Oh, so you want us to match? That might just be more paperwork than it’s worth.” "Well, why would you have to change your name and not me? Why do you get to do it and not me?" He quirks a brow and tips his head, giving her a look that says, 'you won't talk me out of this.'

She giggles again, then closes her eyes as he runs his fingers through her hair. Eventually, she looks out at the estate that she still kinda can’t believe is hers. The house is quiet — her family has stowed away in their little nooks of the property. The main house is theirs for the night. She feels a chill from the night sea breeze and tugs at him, angling her head toward the door. “C’mon, Mr. Mendes-Hamilton, it’s getting cold out here.”

He grins as she tugs at him, pulling him back towards the door. He feels like his heart is swollen in his chest as he stumbles after her, his long legs getting the best of him just a bit because he's so distracted by the way she says his name like that. "Whatever you say, Dr. Mendes-Hamilton," he croons, giving her a wink as he follows her inside, crowding closely behind her so he can get his hands on her waist and nuzzle his face into her neck. They stay intertwined and giddy for the rest of the night.

Taglist: @celaenaaashryver @softboyshawn @marlahey @smallerinfinities @crapri @the-claire-bitch-project @stillinskislydia @rosesfool @sippingchai @lostinshawnslight @infiniteshawn @localforeiigner @evergreeneyesx @randi-eve @accioalena @shawnitsmutual @searchingunderthestars @justmimi38

#shawn mendes #shawn mendes fanfic #shawn mendes fan fic #shawn mendes fanfiction #shawn mendes fan fiction #shawn peter raul mendes #shawn mendes fic #shawn mendes fluff #shawn mendes rpf #shawn mendes roleplay

[scythe-black]

Title- not welcome(2)

Pairing: McLennon (Paul McCartney x John Lennon)

Summary: an interesting school day

this story is inspired by the movie lost boy about John Lennon.

—•——•——•——•——•——•——•——•-

It was a Tuesday, John hadn’t left his mind since then

Everytime Paul’s closes his eyes he sees John, every Ted he walks by he thinks of john. It’s driving the younger boy mad, he had never felt the slightest attraction to anyone but of course he had to feel this for a boy.

He’s already such a outsider, what would happen if people found out he fancied a boy.

Paul slowly opened his heavy eyes as he woke up, the sun was blistering though the window hitting Paul’s face directly.

Paul groaned as he sat up in his bed, letting the blanket fall as he rubbed the sleep from his eyes. He remembers his dream too vividly.

Him and John where at school, Paul was pushed against a locker while John kisses and niped at his neck

Paul wasn’t happy at waking from his perfect dream but it also scared him. He felt so confused why John of all people, this random Ted who was probably a perfect copy of all the other Teds that walked around.

Paul looked to his bed side table at his alarm and his eyes shot open, it was only 15 minutes before the bus was supposed to arrive.

Paul jumped out of his bed and almost ripped of his pijamas grabbing and putting on some clothes before grabbing the stacks of books and notes scatered on his desk, shoving them in his bag before swinging the door open.

He ran to his brothers room to see if he was up, but when he got there his father was hovering over his pale brother.

“Is he ok” Paul asked walking over to the bed with a worried look on his face

“Just sick” his father looked at his watch “dam, sorry son I forgot to wake you. I was a bit preoccupied”

“Don’t worry dad, it’s alright. I’m off to school” Paul whispered as he walked backwards out the door, he turned around as soon as he left the room quickly down the stairs to grab a apple as he ran out the door.

He sprinted a kilometre to the bus stop he arrived as the bus pulled up, he walked onto the bus, the lad driving the bus gave him a smirk as he took in the boys deshvaled look.

Paul walked to a seat in the middle of the bus, and took to looking out the window as the bus started to move.

‘Hope Mike’s alright’ he thinks absentmindedly, until John re-entered his mind. His slick hair, mysterious eyes and beautiful face. Paul was so lost in his mind he didn’t feel the person sit down next to him as he staired out the window.

Suddenly Paul felt a hand stroke through his hair, which made him instinctively looked back with confused eyes

“You shouldn’t just-“ Paul was cut of as he turned his head to see John, with his hair styled as it always is (elvis styled) with a white shirt and leather jacket, a smirk covered Johns face as he looked at the younger boys reaction

“What’s wrong princess” John said as he reaches up and puts his hand under Paul’s chin and rubs his thumb over Paul’s lower lip “cat got your toung” Paul and John where making intense eye contact

“I....I just” Paul shook his head away from Johns hypmatising eyes and slapped Johns hand from his chink

“I was saying how you can’t just go walking up to people and touching their hair” Paul says as he crossed his arms looking away, slightly blushing from the proximity of John who is only a few inches away from Paul

“I was just trying to clean up my princesses hair” Paul suddenly remember that he forgot to do his hair before he left, quickly pushing his hands into his hair trying to make it look presentable.

“I’m not your princess” Paul says firmly couching a chuckle out of John, John moves even closer to Paul pushing his hands out of his hair.

“You should let me do this” John looks into Paul’s eyes once again, Paul still hates the power those eyes have over him. crossing his arms again leaning back but still nodding giving promition to John.

John threaded his hands in the younger boys hair, slightly pulling it and patting it down to try and make it look presentable, from Paul’s point of view John looked to be almost on top of him as he did his hair, Paul wouldn’t admit it but it felt really nice to have Johns hands in his hair.

John shifts ever closer, their legs where now slightly touching, John definitely didn’t miss the blush that came over Paul’s face. If John was completely honest he took a bit long then needed to do Paul’s hair because he liked how it felt to have Paul’s hair in his hands.

“Ok all done princess” John caressed Paul’s cheek slightly “I have my princess looking all pretty again” John leans his head against the seat while simultaneously checking out Paul, taking him in. His now fixed hair, his soft lips, truthful eyes and perfect body. John almost drooled looking at him.

The bus pulled up to the school while John was still taking in Paul, paul felt trapped. He was watching as John looked him over, his heart was racing and his face was covered with a deep red blush. So the seconds the bus pulled up he stood up, Johns breaking out of his trance as his eyes followed Paul’s movements with a confused look.

“I.... I gota go” Paul scrambled past John and out the door of the bus before John ever took in what he had said, but it was to late, Paul was gone.

————————————————————

Paul had made it through the entire day without seeing John again, now it was time to go home. Paul was at his locker putting books in his bag.

“Hi Paul” a cheerful voice says from the side of Paul’s locker, Paul looked up to see the one person he actually wanted to see. His best friend George Harrison.

“Hey George, What brings ya to this side on town” Paul asks

“Nothin much really.... it just....”

Paul looked at George with a questioning look, he could tell his friend was nervous about something.

“Just what?”

“Ah well... people saw you with John... John Lennon, and well... he has a reputation for” George leaned closer to Paul so only they could hear their conversation “for seducing people, theirs a rumour around that he also does that with boys.... it’s not like I have anything against gay people but your fine with that... right” George moves away back to how they where standing before “yer Geo I’m fine with it” George looked calmer after that remark, then he continued to speak “just thought you would want to know, anyway I gota go later Paul”

George walked away, completely missing the worried expression on Paul’s face. Paul stayed standing there ‘is John really trying to get into my pants... he was being so nice to me, but maybe that’s just his charm’ Paul looked disappointed, how could he be stupid enough to feel like John wanted anything more.

Paul exhaled, going back to packing his bag. He shut his locker, slung his satchel bag over his shoulder and turned around, only to see the last person he wanted to see right now, John. John was standing very close to Paul, it was unreal it almost felt like déjà vu.

“You know I have been looking for you all day, ever since you just left me on the bus” John said taking a step closer, making Paul take a step back and hit the lockers making matalic metal sound.

The halls where now empty, no one except for them. “So I was thinkin, your pretty good at guitar. Maybe you can teach me some more cords and songs ya know?” John asked as he took another step closer to Paul, putting his arm up so it was next to pauls head.

“Uhh I have stuff to do this week but..... I’m free Friday afternoon.... I guess” Paul looked at the ground

“Gear, sounds perfect” John moves his other hand to lift Paul’s chin, Paul was making sure to look anywhere but Johns eyes. Standing there with John so close made him think back to his dream, as nice as it was in his dream Paul knew it wouldn’t be good to recreate that.

“Why won’t you look at me”

“Your just very.... close” Paul says in a whisper

John steps back letting Paul have some air to breathe, he looks down at the ground and rubs his forehead “I’m sorry if I’ve been making you uncomfortable” Paul’s looks at John with confusion, why is he suddenly being so.... shy, when he just had Paul up against a locker

“Why are suddenly so... Caring”

John looks up and chuckles

“I don’t know honestly, with anyother person I would probably have them pinned against those locked, making out with them. But theirs something different about you.” John smiles at Paul, he didn’t smirk, he smiled and it was the most beautiful thing Paul had ever seen.

“Anyway, where do you live”

“Oh, right” Paul put his hand in his bag and grabed out a slip of paper and a pen, he turned around using the lockers to write on giving John a nice view of Paul’s ass.

He scribbles down his address folding the paper than turned around and gave it to John who opened it up and quickly took a look at it “huh I don’t live too far from here only a block or two away at 9 Newcastle Road” John smiled at Paul again.

But then a smirk covered Johns face again as he slips the paper in his back pocket and walked forward, Paul not as afraid stayed standing where he was as John leaned forward and gave him a kiss on the cheek “see you later princess” then he walks away, Paul’s heart is racing. Did John really just kiss his cheek

Paul doesn’t know what to think anymore, John told him he’s different but maybe that’s just apart of his plan to get into his pants maybe he should listen to George and stay away or maybe Johns telling the truth.

Paul hates it when his brain tells him one thing but his heart tells him another and this was definitely one of those times

—————————————-

#paul mccartney #the beatles #john lennon #george harrison #mclennon #bands #music #kiss #cheek #not welcome

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Michael In the Mainstream - Avengers: Endgame

Endgame is a film that is really more than a film. This is a cultural milestone. This is the culmination of a decade’s worth of stories told by all sorts of different creative minds, a set of stories that all managed to have consistent character growth and development, a grand finale to ten years with all sorts of beloved and iconic characters. This film is the twilight of the age of Steve Rogers and Tony Stark, and the dawn of a new era of fresh heroes, heroes whose stories we’ve only begun to experience. This is something that has never been done before, a massive storyline told throughout twenty plus films coming together in a big shared universe to deliver an awesome, climactic final confrontation between characters we know and love and a villain we love to hate. There’s never really been a film of this magnitude before.

I have loved the MCU since it began when I was a teenager. I had just started high school when Iron Man first came out, and it just amazed me how good it was. Unlike the year’s other superhero film, which was based on one of the Big Three of Marvel’s Distinguished Competition, I didn’t really have any sort of huge expectations for Iron Man. Like sure, I was aware of who he was, I knew he was a classic Marvel comic character, but he wasn’t Spider-Man or the X-Men, the characters I grew up watching in cartoons and who I was intimately familiar with. Hell, I even knew the Hulk better than Iron Man. But boy, did that change fast; Robert Downey Jr.’s incredible performance, the fun writing, the gripping character study, and the solid action all got me interested in this washed up B-list hero who had spent the most recent arc of his comics becoming the superhero version of Hitler.

And that was a running theme for the MCU. I ever cared too much about characters like Captain America, Thor, Ant-Man, or Black Panther when I was younger, and I didn’t even know characters like the Guardians of the Galaxy were a thing. All of this was just beyond my knowledge. And yet, these films made me care about these characters, got me invested in them. It’s something that with a few rare exceptions the X-Men films completely failed to do. I honestly can say after all is said and done I love Iron Man, Captain America, and the Guardians way more than I do Cyclops, Jean Grey, and Storm, which is not something I would have ever guessed I’d say a decade ago. And growing up with all these characters and seeing them go through these films, going into this one I knew there had to be some big dramatic payoff, some sense of finality. You can pull of stuff like massive retcons and everyone coming back from the dead in comics, but in movies? That’s how you lose viewers. I knew they’d really have to blow our minds with this, especially after the brutal gut punch that was Infinity War.

And for the most part, they truly delivered.

Endgame is a satisfying conclusion to the epic first decade of the MCU, closing the doors on some stories but opening up a world of possibilities on others. And while there are some problems here and there, the overall product is just so good that it’s easy to forgive the flaws, though it is easy to see why some would be a bit less forgiving. Still, even more critical folk than me admit that regardless of problems this is still a good movie.

This movie has three acts, and I will be going over each individually. There are going to be SPOILERS here, because there is just so much to unpack with this film, so consider this your warning. Again, SPOILERS BELOW.

The first act picks up where the Avengers were left at the end of Infinity War: broken, defeated, and desperate. Despite Carol saving Tony and Nebula from deep space, things seem pretty hopeless, until an energy signature is picked up revealing the whereabouts of Thanos. The Avengers rush to confront him, eager to steal back the Stones and right what went wrong… but upon arriving, they find Thanos broken, scarred, and worst of all, utterly without the Stones. He destroyed them all so his work could not be undone. He has completely, irreversibly won. And so when Thor brings Stormbreaker down and cuts off his head only a short while into the film, it does not feel triumphant or thrilling. It feel sad, miserable, and bitter.

I think this is probably one of the better twists in the first act. The pace at the beginning is rather slow until they confront Thanos, and it ultimately works in the movie’s favor as it makes the horrific revelation hurt all the more, and then following it up with a time skip of five years later is just rubbing salt in the wound. It also helps cement the original Thanos as a truly unique villain. He not only won, but he died knowing he won. He was victorious in death for five years, and there was nothing any of the heroes could do about it. It seems a bit anti-climactic when you first think about it, but really this end to the original Thanos is a rather fitting conclusion of his character arc from Infinity War. He won, he watched the sun rise on the universe… what more could this Thanos really do?

The time skip shows what all the heroes have been up to in the interim: Steve is running support groups  for survivors, Tony has married Pepper and has a daughter, Natasha has been in contact with the remaining heroes, Clint has been out brutally murdering criminals as Ronin, Banner has managed to keep his intellect as Hulk and become a relatively famous figure, and Thor has basically become an obese drunkard wallowing in his failure. Our heroes are at their absolute lowest point… until one little rat walks over a control panel on a van in a storage unit and frees Scott “Ant-Man” Lang from the Quantum Realm.

I will say that a lot of the latter half of the first act, the part that sets up the “Time Heist” of the second act, drags on a bit, and this is really the portion of the film that will make or break it for you. You need to really be invested in these characters, you need to be ready to handle the ways they’ve dealt with the knowledge that they have lost. Thor’s fate especially has been contentious, with people crying foul that throughout the movie the Russos did nothing but “undo” all the development Taika Waititi gave him, which is quite frankly such a stupid argument it’s not worth addressing. What IS worth addressing is how Thor’s trauma, unlike most of the other Avengers, is played for laughs. For some, seeing Thor as a fat, slovenly drunkard is going to be a bit upsetting and tasteless; for others, the black comedy will cross the line twice and make it rather funny. That aspect is definitely going to help or hinder your enjoyment of this segment.

Even that aside, it does really feel like it takes a while to get to the real fun part of the movie, though it’s not as if anything in the first act is truly bad, per se; it’s just very character-driven as opposed to exciting and thrilling. If you’re into character-driven drama, then you’ll really dig this, since all of the performances here are excellent, with Paul Rudd in particular really showing off some impressive range and Scarlett Johansson actually managing to impress me with her emotional performance. Seeing Hawkeye become a complete and total badass who slaughters his way through thugs is also a refreshing change from the absolute joke he has been in previous films, and his winning streak in act one is happily carried throughout the film, completely redeeming Hawkeye. There’s also a lot of good comedy here as it builds up into the time heist, particularly Rhodey’s suggestion of what to do with baby Thanos or the ill-fated test run of the time machine.

I think it is important to note that unlike most films that deal with the subject, the movie actually gives clear, definitive rules on time travel: you can’t go back to the past and alter your present, any changes you make only succeed in creating a split timeline resulting in an alternate universe. This does not allow them to go back and kill Thanos before the Snap, but it DOES allow them to go back to times when they could reasonably steal the Infinity Stones and use them to undo the damage done. This is actually a pretty solid take on time travel and an easy take to grasp at that, though as I will mention later, this simple and clearly explained version of time travel has somehow left people confused. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Act two is where the movie really picks up steam, as the remaining heroes split into groups and head back to points in time where they get to experience moments from beloved Marvel films (and Thor: The Dark World) as they retrieve the Stones. Cap, Tony, and Ant-Man go after Loki’s scepter and the Tesserect following the battle of New York as seen in The Avengers, which leads to a lot of hilarity including Cap fighting his past self and an elevator scene that not only calls back to the one from The Winter Soldier but also features the redemption of one of the most awful moments in modern comics with one of the single funniest lines in the entire film; Hulk wanders over to the Sanctum Sanctorum and argues with the Ancient One for the Stone in the Eye of Agamotto; Rocket and Thor go back to the period of time where Jane Foster was at Asgard to steal the Reality Stone from inside her, which leads to Thor getting a touching reunion with his mother as well as an opportunity to snag Mjolnir; Nebula and Rhodey get to go to the opening of Guardians of the Galaxy and witness Peter Quill dancing and singing to himself like a moron before knocking him out and stealing the Stone; and Black Widow and Hawkeye go to Vormir to confront the Red Skull for the Soul Stone. I’m sure you can imagine how that one goes.

This part of the movie is a lot more fun with how varied it gets. There’s plenty of comedy, action, and character moments, and it just feels a lot more fun than the first act. Seeing how characters that rarely interacted or even never interacted in the past bounce off each other is really delightful, particularly Rhodey and Nebula. Of course, there is also great moments of development, such as when Steve and Tony botch their initial Stone theft and have to go back even further in time, which leads to Tony getting a heartwarming moment with his father while Steve is reminded of Peggy. And then, of course, there is Black Widow and her character arc coming to a close, as she heroically mirrors Gamora’s tragic fate.

There has, of course, been a lot of argument over Black Widow’s fate here. Here’s my take on it: Black Widow’s character arc throughtout the films has always been a desire to scrub the red from her ledger and find some meaning to her life. Age of Ultron, for all its flaws, shows she thinks of herself as a monster, and truly just wants to make a connection, find a group she has something in common with. With the Avengers, she found just that, she found the family she never had, she found something worth living for, fighting for, and ultimately dying for. Her sacrifice wasn’t some sad attempt at shock, it wasn’t her being stuffed in the fridge to further the character arcs of her male costars, it was her character arc becoming fully realized, it was her understanding that to save those she loved she had to make a choice, and it is the most utterly selfless and heroic act in the entire movie, and maybe even the entire franchise. Everyone would have lost if not for Natasha. She is probably the most heroic character in the movie… well, with one exception, but we’ll get to him shortly. The point is, her sacrifice carried more dramatic and thematic weight than if Clint had sacrificed himself; Clint is very much an underrealized and underutilized character, and while this movie improved him, it was still not enough to make his sacrifice as painful as Black Widow’s.

Act two comes to a close with heroes grieving Black Widow and preparing the Stones for a Snap to bring everyone back… unfortunately, they don’t realize there is a traitor in their midst: Nebula. Not out Nebula, but Nebula from 2014, prior to her character development. You see, Thanos could still access the future Nebula’s video recording eye since her software is still on the same server even in the future (it’s a bit weird but it still makes a bit of sense). 2014 Thanos finds out about his future self’s victory and becomes furious that any would try and undo his “mercy.” And so he enacts a plan to get him to this future and kill the Avengers once and for all. The evil Nebula bringing her father and his fleet to the future right after the second snap kicks off the third act, as Thanos obliterates the Avenger’s mansion with his ship.

The third act, the entire third act, is just peak MCU. The entire act from start to finish is the absolute best the franchise has to offer. It all begins with the heroes struggling to regroup and find each other in the wreckage, with Hawkeye having to run from aliens in a dark basement, Hulk having to hold up rubble to help save Rhodey and Rocket, Nebula helping sway 2014 Gamora to her side and then in the ultimate act of “God I really hate how I used to be” shooting her past self to death, Ant-Man rushing to save his friends after escaping the blast, and Cap, Thor, and Iron Man going to fight Thanos. This is the beginning of the end.

It is interesting to note that here, Thanos is a lot closer to the megalomaniac tyrant he was in the comics while still staying in line with his movie version from the previous film. It does go to show how fragile his ego is and how his talk of his work being merciful and good is just a delusion he has bought into; he freely admits here that he should not have been so kind, he blames everyone else for his failure, and he promises to remake the universe in his image, perfectly balanced and unaware of all they lost. Despite being almost an entire reversal of his previous characterization, it actually functions quite while as a weird way of continuing his arc while at the same time addressing the criticisms many leveled at the anti-villainous Thanos of Infinity War. It definitely looks like the Russos were well aware of how Thanos would be perceived, and did a really great job at having the best of both worlds in regards to his characterization. And even here, where he is fully embracing his villainy and saying how he will enjoy crushing his foes, one still gets the sense that he still sees himself as the hero in his mind and is absolutely furious that anyone would wish to undo what he considers a kindness.

Of course, the battle with these three fighting Thanos is quite enjoyable, and showcases even without his Gauntlet Thanos is a force to be reckoned with, as he trounces the three Avengers, though not without great effort… especially after Steve Rogers does something we’ve all been waiting a long time to see him do: pick up Mjolnir and wield it in battle. I think it’s safe to say that Thor’s jubilant shout of “I KNEW IT!” is one that was echoed in the minds of every single viewer of the scene. And just when you think the movie couldn’t get even more epic, just when it seems that Thanos will win as a bruised and bettered Steve stands alone against Thanos and his entire army… Steve gets a call.

“On your left.”

Hundreds of magic portals open, and the resurrected heroes all come through, along with any sort of crew they could bring. For the record, this is: Black Panther, Shuri, Okoye, M’Baku, the armies of Wakanda, Doctor Strange, Wong, all of the wizards, Spider-Man, Star-Lord, Drax, Mantis, Groot, Falcon, Bucky, Scarlet Witch, Valkyrie, Korg, Miek, the remaining Asgardians, Wasp, Pepper Potts in her Rescue armor, Kraglin, his Ravager crew, and even Howard the Duck. And if that’s not enough for you, the Avengers who were still alive before the attack all come in for the battle. And they said Super Smash Bros. Ultimate was the most ambitious crossover of all time. Was Howard the Duck in Smash? I think not.

And as the heroes gather for the inevitable charge, do you know what Steve says? He says two little words that fans have been waiting for such a long time to hear him say, something a less talented writer and director teased us with several films ago:

“AVENGERS… ASSEMBLE!”

Hurry quick and wipe those tears from your eyes so you don’t miss the awesome final battle, which is just filled to the brim with moments where every single hero gets to shine. Highlights include Spidey and Tony reuniting, Spidey activating the “Instant Kill” function of his suit, Gamora kicking Star-Lord in the balls, Tony and Pepper fighting back to back, Scarlet Witch confronting Thanos, and the awesomely cheesy “GIRL POWER” moment that is far more empowering than the entirety of Captain Marvel. Everything about this battle is fantastic, everything about it is peak MCU, everything is the epitome of why people love superhero movies… and it all culminates with the conclusion of Tony Stark’s decade-long character arc, as he steals the Stones from Thanos and snaps his fingers, erasing Thanos and his army at the cost of his life.

This moment is depressing on two fronts. On one, there is Tony. He is the hero we have spent the most time with, the one we know the best. And after all these films, he finally proved Steve Rogers wrong: he was able to lay his life on the line for the greater good, sacrificing himself fully for his wife, his daughter, his friends, and the entire universe. Tony went from a self-absorbed egomaniac arms dealer to a truly great, heroic figure who did what he had to do to protect everyone he cared about.

But on the other is Thanos. Most villains, upon seeing their plans come to ruin and their armies laid to waste, would break down, rant, offer some sort of last taunt… but not Thanos. Thanos accepts his death, however much it pains him to. The look of exhaustion, anguish, and utter hopelessness on his face as he sits down in a dark mirror of the ending of Infinity War truly cements him as a great and worthy foe. For all his faults, for all his insanity, Thanos was still a man utterly deluded by his pain and past tragedies into believing his cause was noble and just, and here he sits in his final moments perhaps wondering as his future self did if it was really all worth it. His crumbling to dust as he so cruelly did to so many others I well-deserved and a fitting end for one such as him, but there’s no denying that there is an element of tragedy to it too. It’s the exact sort of emotional ending I would have hoped for from Marvel’s greatest villain.

The finale wraps things up with Tony’s funeral, as well as Cap going back in time to return the Stones and Mjolnir to the moments they were stolen so that the alternate timelines can handle themselves. But Steve decides to create his own alternate timeline before coming home, and lives out an entire lifetime with an alternate Peggy Carter before returning to his own time and passing his shield and title on to Falcon. Many were confused as to if this meant Steve changed the canon of the MCU, but… they explain what happens in the movie. Quite a few times in fact. If you paid attention at all, you would know it is not possible for him to alter the canon. He created an alternate timeline where he presumably lived a full, happy life and ensured things would go well for everyone. No Hydra infiltration of SHIELD, no Winter Soldier, no Stark assassination, none of that. Just a long, happy life with the woman he loved, his best friend, and a well-deserved retirement from the fields of battle in the end. While the conclusion to Cap’s arc is not quite as good as Tony’s, it’s still heartfelt and touching, and it’s hard to say he didn’t deserve a happy life after everything he went through.

And so ends the Infinity Saga, and the first ten years of the MCU. This movie changed a hell of a lot, to the point where even though only two main heroes died over the course of the film, things still will never be the same going forward, and I like that a lot. Unlike every other cinematic universe that has sprung up in the wake of the MCU, I fully feel like any stories told after this one will continue to build off the foundations that this film and its predecessors laid out. There won’t be the need for soft rebooting like with the DCEU, or with actual rebooting like Dark Universe, or just constant messy and confusing timelines like with the X-Men Series. The MCU has managed to remain remarkably consistent throughout, and there’s no reason to doubt they’d continue that into the future. There’s no stinger here, but the moments after the final battle with the Guardians and Thor certainly set up interesting possibilities, as does the now teenaged Cassie Lang, who may well take up the superhero role she has in the comics. It’s hard to predict where the future of the MCU will be going right now, but all things considered it certainly looks bright.

Ultimately, this movie is a love letter. It’s a slow build that starts by examining the characters we know and love at their lowest, builds into a nostalgic and hilarious trip down memory lane, and culminates in the most beautiful sort of fanservice imaginable that then brings a touching conclusion to two of the greatest heroes in all of cinema. Of course, as I’ve mentioned, that first act is going to be what makes or breaks this for some people, and the part does drag a bit, but ultimately this movie is more what it ends up as than what it starts out as. That finale is the single greatest work of art the MCU has produced thus far, and I’m not sure that even with another ten years they’ll ever be able to top it.

The amazing thing is, this movie is pretty accessible even if you aren’t a hardcore fan, though it’s definitely only going to have full emotional impact if you’ve been watching these characters for years. This is a movie for the fans first and foremost, and that’s really not a bad thing; why wouldn’t you make an epic finale to so many arcs that appeals to the people who invested so much time in it? As someone who grew up with the MCU, who has watched it grow and blossom into everything I ever dreamed of seeing as a kid, I only have this to say to all of the directors, writers, actors, stunt people, just everyone who made this and all the other films possible, and to the dearly departed Stan Lee who created so many of these people I’ve spent the past decade watching come to life on screen:

I love you three thousand.

Here’s to another ten years of cinematic superhero excellence.

#Michael in the Mainstream #MitM #Review #Movie review #Avengers: Endgame #Endgame #Avengers #Marvel #MCU #Marvel Cinematic Universe #Infinity Saga #Iron Man #Captain America #Thanos #Superhero #superhero movie #spoilers #Endgame spoilers

[srawesleyghuewrites]

Back To You - Chapter 9

Series: Back To You(Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8)

For desktop users: masterlist

For mobile users: mobile masterlist

Pairing: Drake x MC(Anna Grey)

Faceclaim: Daniel di Tomasso as Drake Walker, Elizabeth Olsen as Anna Grey and Paul Wesley as King Liam

Book: The Royal Romance

Word Count: ~ 3200

Rating:  M for language

Prompt:

Drake’s gone and everybody is very confused about what the hell happened. Except for Anna, who thinks she understood everything from his silence. Little did they all know just how much of a challenge they were about to face.

Disclaimer: The characters don’t belong to me(except for Anna Grey),  I just borrow them from Pixelberry!

I always will

You can break my heart in two

But when it heals, it beats for you

I know it's forward, but it's true

Won't lie, I'd go back to you

“He’s gone.”

Hana says, out of breath, the minute she finds Savannah and Bertrand sitting comfortably on a couch. The first person she thought to ask for help was Liam, but then she realized how much it would hurt him to do that and considered Maxwell until she saw who was with him, Anna. So her last resource to bring some sense into Drake’s stubborn head is Savannah, who looks worried but not surprised at her words. After all, he isn’t the first on his family to run from the problems and feelings.

“Who?”

Savannah asks but she already knows the answer even before any words come out of Hana’s mouth. She knew something was wrong a while ago, even though she’s been away from her brother quite a while, there’s nobody she knows better than him.

She’s not gonna walk away again, and neither is Drake if she can do something about it. It took her a long time to realize running is never the answer and usually just brings out even more questions.

“Drake.”

“Well, he has never been an admirer of our marvelous parties. Did not belong here.”

Bertrand continues smiling when Savannah turns to him with an expression that says ‘Shut up’ and he understands this has nothing to deal with him. Hana looks at her expectantly. She turns around, linking her arm with Hana’s and starts walking together.

“Explain it to me Hana. What happened?”

“I don’t… fully know. It was something with Anna and them being together, that’s all I can tell. But maybe…”

Her eyes find Maxwell alone getting more appetizers, Anna’s a good few feet away having a pleasant conversation with Adelaide. Suddenly she turns they’re path into Max’s direction because she knows he might help in someway.

“Maxwell might know something. But we need to be quick.”

When they reach him, he’s putting three different types of appetizers on his mouth but still gives them a little smile with his mouth closed. 

“Max, Drake’s gone.”

“What?”

“It was about time huh?”

Olivia, who was getting some more champagne near them overheard Hana and couldn’t pass on the opportunity of teasing them about it. She smirks sarcastically when the three of them turn to look at her, shrugging discreetly while drinking a good amount of her drink. 

“Olivia, this doesn’t concern you. So if you’re not gonna help, no need to stick around.”

Savannah has a rispid tone that Olivia’s seen very little times before, usually when she was defending her brother or her baby, for any comment the redhead might make. For some weird reason she doesn’t feel like walking away, maybe she just wants in on the gossip or maybe… maybe she started to care for this dysfunctional group they’re a part of.

“Why is he gone?”

“He had a fight with Anna.”

Hana says, still waiting for Maxwell to give them more details. His eyes carry the same worry that his voice, and he can’t help but shift his gaze momentarily to Anna.

“More like… he kinda told Anna he doesn’t want a future with her or whatever.”

“He what?”

“Why would he do that?”

“Why wouldn’t he?”

The redhead grins when she says the words, though she knows they’re not true. Even she sees how much those two love each other and with time she’s learned to see how great the Duchess is, even though she will never admit that. If anyone shouldn’t want a future with someone, definitely the other way around.

“We don’t have time for that. The longer we stay here discussing, the more distant he can be.”

Hana’s always the calm and reasonable one, which makes everybody listen to her in this moment. Anna approaches the group with a wrinkle on her forehead, meaning she’s worried about this little reunion by the appetizers table.

“Everything alright guys?”

“Yes, of course. Me and Savannah were just going to check on little Bartie. Excuse us.”

Savannah winks at Hana when they turn their backs to the group and start walking toward the palace doors. Then Hana realizes she has no idea what to do next and she bites her lip, around the time they leave the doors behind.

“He’s not here.”

She says after fastly examining the outdoors and thinking about where the hell could he be. Surely not in his room because he left the palace a couple of minutes before and she kept watching the door in case he came back. 

“And I have no idea where he could be.”

“But I do. Go inside and keep Anna close, I’m gonna bring my stubborn-ass brother back to her.”

...

Savannah knew where he would go to think, to be away from the crowd but still close enough to come back in case she needed him. Because in the end, all he wants is her, Anna. She’s known this for a while, by the way he looks at her when she’s not looking, by the smile on his face whenever she’s around, by how she can make him chuckle softly even though her brother doesn’t do anything softly, for her, he does. Because he’s in love with Anna Grey. And he’s letting her slip through his fingers over something stupid.

When she entered the barely lit labyrinth, some of her confidence disappeared and she was afraid after all this time apart he wouldn’t go to “their” place. The guilt of abandoning him became stronger and stronger by the second, and she stopped herself before passing the opening on the grass leading to the back of the castle where a wood bench horribly build has Drake sitted on. They built that bench with his dad in a sunny monday morning that for a miracle, their father had free. He wanted them to learn and do things on their own, so he kept their bad quality design and just made sure people could sit there. It was one of her only memories about her father and it sounds like a lifetime ago.

He lifts his head the minute he hears her leave the labyrinth and she quickly sees they’re teary red. They don’t maintain eye contact for long, when she gets closer his gaze drifts to the floor out of shame, or maybe just to let it clear he’s not in a chatty mood.

Savannah sits in silence next to him, interlacing her hands over her lap. She wants to give him time to speak but after ten long minutes of hurtful silence, she realizes he’s not gonna talk at all and takes the first step.

“I’m surprised you don’t have a whiskey bottle to keep you company. They ran out of those?”

“Wasn’t planning on staying too long here.”

“Do you have someplace to be?”

“Far away from Grey.”

Her name is an almost painful groan and he presses his mouth into a thin line after saying it. She can almost feel how much that’s breaking his heart and she’s glad he was the one who brought the subject on. 

“Why?”

“If you’re here, you already know.”

“She said no to Liam.”

She said remembering Hana’s words when they parted from the group, not wanting to tell Olivia just yet.

“Yes.”

“And she said yes to you?”

“I-I.. didn’t ask.”

“Do you want to?”

“It’s not that simple Savannah. She should’ve said yes to Liam.”

“And you shouldn’t have fallen for the woman your best friend loves, but you did. Because somethings Drake, somethings… you can’t help it.”

She was talking about him and Anna but also about her and Bertrand, about the choices she made after falling for someone who she wasn’t supposed to. A heat came to her cheeks suddenly, when her mind visited the memory of their last night together and how that changed everything. But as quickly as the heat came, another sensation washed over her, a much darker one that brought tears to her eyes. The love of her life never proposed to her and probably never will, taking away her chance to say yes in spite all of the reasons she has to say no.

Drake’s also lost in his own thoughts after Savannah’s words, a million flashbacks passing by at the same time. When she reflects on her own life, she sees how much her decisions affected him too, in a deeper way than the would expect.

“It wasn’t you.”

“What?”

“It wasn't you who made me leave Drake. You didn’t fail me. You didn’t ruin me. You don’t ruin people by loving them. It’s not your fault what happened to me or to mom, you didn’t push us away, it was quite the other way around so you don’t get to feel guilty. Because this… this  is what’s stopping you from asking the woman you love to marry you, to embrace happiness for once in your life after dad died and mom left. And they both would want you to take that chance with Anna, as do I.”

“He can give her so much Sav.”

“Don’t you see what’s obvious Drake? She doesn’t want ‘so much’. She wants you. Just you is enough for her.”

…

  She knew her friends little reunion had something to do with the mess between her, Liam and Drake. Though she had no idea why, since then Hana’s been glued to her side, not letting her out of sight even when they went to the bathroom. Other than this odd behavior, everyone else seemed quite worried and cautious around her. Which is expected and actually a good thing for her right now, because she can’t talk about anything that happened. Not even think about it without the tears threatening to fall. 

That’s why she has to take a deep breath when Liam starts walking towards her and Hana. She also tensed beside Anna, squeezing her hand through their linked arms and taking a step closer to her, as if that can protect her from the complicated situation. However they’re both surprised at the smile on Liam’s face and the cheerful tone of his voice.

“Hello Lady Hana, Duchess Anna. How are you two enjoying the ball?”

The king emphasizes her new title, trying to show he’s proud and happy for her. Even if that’s taking use of his acting skills, at least all those classes are coming in handy tonight. Anna responds with a big smile but she’s not as good at pretending, especially when it comes to Drake, who seems to never leave her thoughts. It’s easy to notice it, especially by someone who is as close to her as Liam, by the way she’s staring at random places for long moments with an empty look, and the way she holds Hana’s hand in a way too strong grip. But she doesn’t seem bothered by it.

“It’s been… magical. I believe that was the theme, right?”

She jokes and sweetly smiles to him, quickly turning her gaze back to Anna, who simply agrees with a nod. He’s been wondering for a while why isn’t she beaming out there with Drake on her arm, and deep down he knows she’s not alright.  She immediately stops avoiding his gaze and stares straight at him, as if she read his mind. Again, it takes a lot of pretending when he sees tears building on Anna’s eyes.

“Yes. And I’m glad you’ve been enjoying it.”

They maintain eye contact for a long time, until she has to blink back the tears. Liam takes a deep breath and reminds himself that she just turned him down. It’s not his place to comfort her, as much as he would like it to be. So after another deep breath he assumes his kingly duties and touches her arm gently to bring her attention back to him. Regretting that instantly, because the grey eyes pierce his again, with a longing expression on her face and he begins aching for more contact, more time, more of her.

“I have to go, it’s time for the speech. Can you come when I call your name? It’ll be your formal introduction as the Duchess of Valtoria.”

“Of course.”

He expected her words to follow a little joke, as always, but they didn’t. That’s when he knows it’s something more serious than expected. Trying to shake it out of his head, he lets go of her arm and finally says:

“Thank you. If you’d like to say something too, I’m sure we would all appreciate your wise words.”

“I-I… don’t think I could. Not tonight.”

“Are you alright? Did something happen?”

Liam’s voice is barely a whisper, not wanting to attract preaching ears to what seems to be a delicate matter for Anna. He moves to catch her hand, already preparing himself to take her somewhere quiet and let herself lean on him. Hana’s eyes widen when she sees what he’s about to do. She can’t let him create hope again, or Anna to feel even more guilty. They would both open a door that should remain closed, because even if Drake doesn’t come around, he’s the one Anna loves. And getting involved with Liam again would cause more pain for everybody. For that and many,many other reasons she speaks fastly:

“I think your father is requesting you Liam.”

He turns around and finds his father’s eyes searching him, the glass of champagne in hand, ready to start the toast. Then, he excuses himself from the girls with a weird feeling in his gut. Part of relief because he knew touching her like that would cause both of them confusion but also hurt, for seeing Anna so vulnerable and not being able to help.

“Thank you.”

Anna speaks in a weakly voice, thinking that after the speech she can excuse herself and go to bed. Her warm and comfy bed, where she can cry or scream and nobody will want answers from her. Because tonight, she just can’t take it anymore. She’s too distracted daydreaming about finally ending the night, that she doesn’t pay attention to Liam approaching his father or Drake entering the ballroom again. She hears Hana saying something about getting champagne for the toast and then she leave her side.

He felt many things tonight, from being happy in a bed with Grey to being miserable outside the palace thinking he ruined everything, but hopeful wasn’t one. At least, until Savannah’s words hit him in the face like a well deserved slap, and suddenly he allowed himself to hope. As he walks purposefully towards her, Drake wonders how could he be so dense about the situation, it was clear all along. What he wanted was her, always. And now she wants him too. So how could the fear of jeopardize her future, the fear of committing to someone and risking to be left all alone once again, get in the way of their love? How could he think she would ever abandon him? That’s what he’s thinking when he hears Liam starting his speech.

Anna pays close attention to Liam’s words, but starts worrying about Hana taking so long to find two champagne glasses. After a few seconds she understands that Liam’s still addressing Cordonia’s challenges and his style of leadership, and turns to go look for her friend, bumping straight into a broad chest. Her breath gets caught in her throat when she sees those chocolate dark eyes staring into her, the surprise keeps her from doing anything but gaze up at his, also surprise expression, that quickly turns into a longing one.

Drake prepared himself for this moment, choose his words carefully and played how it would go in his head, however he didn’t expect her to turn so fastly in his direction that they would bump into each other. And when he looks at her beautiful face, those so sweet and always so sarcastic lips, the delicate nose she loves to brush against his as a caress and he simply knows. By the time he’s reached her eyes, he’s surprised she still hasn’t pushed him away. He knows it’s the time to do his damn proposal, and yet he’s so lost in her that everything else seems to wander very far away.

“I thought you left.”

He doesn’t dare to take her eyes out of his focus, even when she whispers the words with a slightly shaky breath. Anna stands firmly in position, she can’t let him get to her, not again. She was done letting him having so much impact over her. But his next statement shake her to the very core.

“I thought you wanted me to. And maybe you do, but I can’t go before telling you...Grey, I love you. I always will.”

They hear clapping and celebrating, but none of them moves an inch to see what’s it about. Drake almost can’t breathe, scared he’s too late and perhaps more scared that if he moves she’ll tell him exactly that. She can’t breathe either, but for entirely different reasons, she’s too stunned by his declaration of love when she thought there was nothing left for the two of them.

Her mind takes a moment to understand what he said. He feels like it’s been forever since he spoke, when it actually has been only a few seconds, until his eyes dart to her lips and time seems to stop at her smile. Anna’s smiling so happily at him, her eyes twinkling with tears of joy that soon are reflected on his too. He touches her chin gently, running his thumb over her jaw and cheek in a loving move.Then he tries to pick the little box in his pocket while saying:

“It’s a late answer but still, I want everything with you. So.. Grey...will”

“To Duchess Anna… the newest member of Cordonian nobility!”

Liam calls her from the stage and the crowd applauds, interrupting the moment between them, even before Drake could take the velvet box from his suit. She squeezes his hand. Reluctantly saying ‘sorry’ and turning around to walk towards the stage, where the King watches her with a brightness in his eyes and a smile on his face. There’s only time for her to walk until near the stage before the lights go out and someone screams. An explosive popping sound tears through the air, then another. Terrified guests screams and she hears someone yelling about gunshots, they try to flee and the crowd surges around Anna. 

“Anna! Get down! Now!”

Drake yells and tries to get closer to her. The guests keep pushing him in different directions, making his work harder and he’s trying to think clearly but with Grey in danger every thought blurs together.

“Anna!”

She hears Liam scream too, from upstage, his voice full of terror that doesn’t help with the mind-stopping fear she’s in right now. Drake’s command doesn’t register in her brain, which seems to be having a breakdown, and all she can do is look for him in the crowd.

The lights come out again and she sees he’s only a few feet away from her, just as she turns to him an assassin points his gun at her. A sharp breath and he pulls the trigger.

“NO!”

Anna hears him scream, and suddenly he’s jumping in front of her, putting his body between her and the bullet… Saving her.

To be continued...

#back to you #back to you series #fanfiction #playchoices #choices stories you play #choices fanfic #choices trr #drake walker #hana lee #king liam #maxwell beaumont #olivia nevrakis #savannah walker #bertrand beaumont #anna grey #drake x mc #mc x drake #angst feels #chapter 9 #almost ending #drake trr #trr fanfic

[wonwoosthetic]

In The Night Of Lobby Hero || Chris Evans

MASTERLIST

WHO I WRITE FOR

I’m officially done with every single one of my exams in school!! Wuup wuup :) I’m literally so happy!!

It was also a very special day - Tom Holland’s 22nd birthday! He’s growing so fast...So, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TOM :) <3

Anyway, this isn’t a Tom imagine, but a Chris Evans one and I’m very happy to share it with you :)

Thanks to @itsthecomet for sending me this request and sorry again for the MASSIVE delay, so so sorry!

Request by @itsthecomet : Like chris and the reader have broke up but in good terms but they don’t see each other anymore due to different schedules.. and then the reader visits New York just to see Chris play in Lobby Hero.. and Chris sees her from the stage and when the play ends the two meet after a long time and they go for a night walk and then they end up in the hotel room of Chris... and you take it from there

This request reminded me SO MUCH of Before We Go and since this is one of my favourite movies of all time and the one that inspired e to become a writer and screenwriter, I decided to involve one of the scenes into this. :)

THIS IS A LONG ONE, SO GET READY :)

Pairing: Chris Evans x Reader

Warning: none

In The Night Of Lobby Hero

Two years… Two years it had been since you’ve seen your ex-boyfriend Chris Evans. But to be honest, it had been your own fault, well… both of yours fault. You had been busy traveling the world, helping children all over. You were an English native speaker for children in underdeveloped countries – you had taught in Brazilia, Africa, Colombia, and a lot more - this took all of your time. Chris, on the other hand, was busy filming – filming for Avengers, and more recently for being on stage by playing Bill, a police officer, in the play ‘Lobby Hero’.

When you ended things two years ago, you went your separate ways in good terms – the both of you had just noticed that due to your extremely different schedules, your relationship was not the way it had been when everything started five years before. Three years before the break-up, you got together after a year of knowing each other – having met at a charity gala – and everything was perfect. Literally perfect. Your relationship could have had been from a fairytale about a normal girl meeting this generous, amazing, and gorgeous Prince Charming called Chris. But after you got the opportunity to visit so many different places, while your boyfriend had to stay in America due to his career, everything started going downwards. Thankfully, you and the tall actor had very quickly noticed that you didn’t spend as much time with each other as you used to, or that you hadn’t even talked to each other as much as before. Therefore, you decided that the best idea and only solution would have had been to end your relationship. Everything happened in all nice manners and you had shown the respect for each other, that the other one deserved so much.

But ever since you had stopped traveling around the globe, you started noticing how lonely your life had been. Of course, you had been always surrounded by other teachers helping you and lovely children, but this loneliness was not about not being in the presence of people, but about not being with one specific human being – Chris. You had thought about texting or even calling him, but decided against it, thinking it would be a bit un-personal. A better, more exciting idea popped into your head as you watched one of the latest interviews of your ex-boyfriend. Because he was currently in New York, being a part of the play on Broadway, you had decided to get a ticket to see him in action. It had always been a dream of yours to see him on a stage, but while you were dating, he didn’t do any plays, now that he has the time for them, he obviously does.

Getting a ticket in one of the front rows was probably the hardest part of the whole plan. As you clicked around on your laptop, trying to find a free seat, you lead out a frustrated sigh, almost giving up, to look any further, but then you saw one extra seat for the performance this Friday ‘That’s in two days!’, the thought immediately came to your head. You hurried up to find one last minute flight to New York, which thankfully was available – destiny and faith were on your side. Not wasting any more minutes, you got up quickly and started packing your suitcase, thinking about how many days you will approximately stay in the big city – deciding on packing for four, just in case. Today was Wednesday, the flight would be at 11 a.m. on Friday, taking about four hours and the play will start at eight p.m., so everything was perfectly planned. Well, almost everything. Then came the second hardest thing to plan on a last-minute trip, a hotel room.

You looked on pretty much every possible hotel website, but none of them had any more rooms left. ‘That’s when it all will go wrong.’ You thought about every possibility of staying in New York… after about half an hour of worrying about where to sleep, the idea of staying at a friend’s place in New York popped into your head. But now the question turned into ‘Who’s house could I ask to stay at?’ All of your friends that came to your head, didn’t live in New York, except for one, Paul Rudd. (I don’t know, if he actually lives in New York, I’m sorry, but I had to change things a bit for the story, I hope you don’t mind.)

You looked around, searching for your phone while sitting on one of the dining chair’s which were right at the table. It was next to your laptop, so you took it and looked for “Ant Paul” in your contacts. After only a few ringing sounds, the actor picked up enthusiastically “Heeyyy (Y/N)!” You laughed at his silliness “Heyy Paul.” “What do I owe the pleasure of speaking to you.” “I have a question…”, you started asking slowly and carefully “Is there any chance you’re in New York right now?” “Yeah, I’m here now, gonna watch a play on Friday and then fly back to L.A., why?”, he explained. Hearing that he was going to see a play, made you think that it was possibly Lobby Hero, but it was very unlikely. “That’s great, ehm… is there any chance a friend could stay over at your place for a few days.” “If that friend is you, OF COURSE. Come!”, he answered, excited to see one of his best friends again. “Yeah, that friend would be me”; you smiled happily, knowing that now everything was going just like planned. “When you’re gonna come?” “My plane leaves at eleven in the morning, and I’m gonna arrive at four.” “Great, perfect; I’m gonna pick you up”; Paul offered kindly. “You don’t have to do that, it’s fine, I’m gonna get a taxi”, you were very thankful to have such an amazing friend. “No, nope, nope-di-nope, I’ll pick you up.” You started laughing again “Alright, alright, if you say so. Thanks again a lot Paul.” “No need to thank me, you’re welcome.” “Well then, I’m gonna carry on packing. See ya!”, you said your goodbye. “Bye, ‘till Friday (Y/N)!” You ended the call.

Shortly after, you decided to check your suitcase again, to see if you got everything packed and ready to take to New York.

--- Friday ---

You woke up earlier to clean your apartment properly, since you won’t be back for at least two to three, at most four days. As you finished at 7 a.m., you went back into your bedroom to pick a comfortable outfit for the flight. Soon enough, you found one and entered the bathroom to take a refreshing shower, brush your teeth, and put on a small amount of make-up.

You got done at 8:30, having taken your time for everything. Calling a taxi was the next step – it was going to be at your place twenty minutes later.

When it arrived and honked, you grabbed your suitcase that had everything you needed in it, and your small blue fabric backpack as a carry-on, with your laptop, a good book, and a couple more things inside of it.

The drive took a bit longer due to a bit of traffic on the highway, but you still managed to get to the airport at 9:30. After paying the taxi-driver and getting your suitcase out of the trunk, you started making your way inside of the big building, the sounds of airplanes landing and taking off were able to be heard.

Security and check-in took long enough, but at 10:50 you were sitting in your seat, ready for the take-off which happened fifteen minutes later.

--- In New York ---

After landing, you started noticing how tired you were, since you had woken up at 5:30 that morning and couldn’t really sleep, besides for thirty minutes, on the plane. The airport was a lot busier than in your city, but you still managed to get through everything without being interrupted. As you were making your way to the exit of the airport, you were already able to see Paul standing there with a hood on his head. Your steps became quicker and the moment you were close enough, you jumped into his already open arms excitedly. You hugged for a solid minute before separating again “Wow, look at you”, Paul started “All glowing happily like that.” You smiled at him “Thank you, well I am excited to see you again.” He took your suitcase and showed you the way to where he had parked his car. “I’m also happy.” Your conversation carried on all the way until you were in the car when he asked a question as he was driving “You know, you never actually told me, why you’re here. I mean don’t get me wrong, I really don’t mind, you know that, but why are you here?”, he wondered, laughing every now and then at his own words. “I wanted to see Chris again.” His head shot into your direction and looked at you with wide eyes, but quickly focused his gaze back on the road “Your Chris?” You looked at him with a ‘seriously?’-look on your face “He’s not my Chris anymore, Paul.” “Oh please, he always was and always will be your Chris. You know that.” “No, Paul-“, you started but he interrupted you “No. Yeah, I know you ended things in good terms, but the both of you and I and every single one of the people that know your guys’ story knows that it wasn’t the best decision you’ve ever made.”

You knew he was right and started looking out of the window to avoid his eyes “Yeah… but at that time it was the only possibility, we didn’t ever see each other because if one of us had the time off, the other was busy.” He nodded understandingly “I get it”, but then he got slightly confused “But where do you want to meet him? Do you know where he is?” “I’m gonna watch Lobby Hero tonight, I bought a ticket. I just want to see him and maybe talk to him for a bit.” He looked at you immediately as you reached a red light “No way! I’m going to the play tonight as well!” “Oh my gosh”, the both of you started laughing.

--- In The Evening ---

The rest of the short time, you had spent together, laughing at old memories, and sharing your ideas of what could happen that night. Paul’s wife and kids hadn’t gone with him to New York, so the apartment only held you and him.

It was 7:15 in the evening and Paul and you decided to start heading off, by using the public transport since Paul had stated that it would be impossible to find a parking space. In the subway, you talked about the god and world and every now and then people would recognize your friend, but nothing too annoying. Shortly before the start of the play, you reached the building and entered to find your seats, which were sadly not next to each other. It started at exact eight p.m.. The moment Chris stepped onto the stage, you felt your heart drop. Even though he looked ridiculous with that mustache, you started realizing how much you’ve missed him over the years… and how much you wanted him back.

As expected, his acting was on point, and as he got to a pause during his line, he started standing on the side of the stage, suddenly fixing his gaze on you. He couldn’t turn his eyes away from you, you were way too pretty that night, well in his eyes you had always looked perfect. You smiled up into his direction, giving him a small wave.

The actor answered with a small smile but quickly got back into his character. The play ended a lot faster than you expected and suddenly all of the actors were lined up and taking bows. You stood up and started clapping. Chris looked at you again and your eyes never left each other for the entire rest of the time, that he spent bowing. After all of them left the stage, everyone around you started leaving the theatre, while you tried to find Paul again – you forgot to tell each other where to meet afterwards.

You decided to stand aside in the entrance hall and wait for him to come out of the large room. You stood there for about five minutes before someone put their hand on your right shoulder, making your head turn to the right – Paul was standing next to you. “I’ve been waiting for you”, you stated. He nodded behind him “I know, sorry, but come with me.” He took your hand and lead you into a narrow hallway that lead to behind the stage. “Where are we going?”, you wondered. “Someone wants to see you”, he turned around while answering and smiled sheepishly.

At first, you were really confused, but then the thought of Chris crossed your mind – maybe, just maybe, did he actually want to see you. Th walk was not too long, and all of a sudden, you were in a room with a lot of people hurrying around the room, moving things away, and actors packing their stuff and leaving the theatre. “He’s over there”, Paul pointed at one of the extra doors on the side – there were about six – probably for the leading actors. When you reached the door, he stopped you right in front of it and grabbed you by your upper arms to look at you. Paul reached out to sooth your hair” “Alright, you look great.” You were still completely confused “What? What for?” He gave you a cheeky grin “You’ll see. Go on in.” He gestured with his hand for you to open the door and enter the room behind it. You did as you were told after knocking three times and walked into the light dressing room. You gave Paul a small goodbye wave and closed the door again. As you turned around, you got to take a proper look around the room. The walls were in a warm beige with lights fixed on them, a couch was leaning on the wall across from you with a large painting above it, a desk was set to your left and a small table on your right with a mirror right next to it. There was another door, which led to a possible bathroom.

“Hello?”, you asked into the room, expecting an answer from somewhere. A deep voice rang from behind the other door “I’ll be right there.” You would recognize that voice everywhere. The door opened, and a casually dressed Chris Evans stepped out. He closed it behind himself, before making his way over to you “Hey”, he greeted you in a soft voice giving you tight hug. You obviously started hugging back “Hey.” After your parted again, the actor put his hands into his pockets “You look great.” You were wearing a dark red a-lined dress with spaghetti halters, which stopped in the middle of your shin. A black clutch was in your left hand. Trying to not laugh at his mustache, you looked down blushing “Thank you”, you looked up again “You were great, by the way.” “You like it?”, he looked shocked but very happy to hear that comment. “I loved it. I’ve always wanted to see your Broadway talent. I knew you had it.” He started smiling “Yeah, I remember.”

You used to always tell him, how much you wanted to see him in a play after his mother had shown you his performance in West Side Story when he was still in school.

A slightly awkward silence overcame the both you, so you decided to ask him, what you had been wondering about ever since Paul lead you through the narrow hallway “I…Ehm… Paul told me you wanted to see me?” “Oh, yes, yes, I… yeah… I wanted to see you. I saw you in the audience and I thought we could maybe go out. We haven’t seen each other In quite a while, I’m sure we’ve got a lot to tell each other.” A smile crossed your face “Yeah, I would love that.” Chris nodded quickly “Great, let me just grab my stuff and we can head off.” He walked over to the couch to grab his wallet and phone, as well as his jacket, which he didn’t put on but threw over the arm to hold it. “Ready?”, you asked. “Yep, let’s go”; he answered.

You opened the door and left his dressing room to make your way out of the building. As you were leaving, with Chris right next to you on your right, he was saying his goodbyes to everyone that crossed your path. After you exited the building, you started walking, but you didn’t know where to “Where are we going?”, you wonderingly looked at him.” “Well, I remember that you don’t like bars or anything like that, so I thought we could just take a walk. New York in the middle of the night is beautiful.” You smile lovingly at him, thinking how cute it was of him to remember that about you “Sure, I’d love to. I’m surprised you still now that.” “As if I could ever forget”, he looked into the distance, remembering all the good memories the two of you shared.

The streets of New York were dark, the only light coming from the shops on the side and the light posts. Cars were driving around at this time of time just like at daytime in any other city.

(please ignore the text on this gif)

“You know, when I saw you in the audience today, I actually didn’t believe my eyes at first”, Chris admitted. You laughed “What? Why not?” “Because you haven’t seen each other in two years and you still look the same, so beautiful…” “Thank you, Chris”, you blushed “I actually only came to New York to see you in Lobby Herp.” He turned to you, looking shocked “As if! Are you kidding me?” You looked at him laughing “No, I’m serious.” “When did you arrive?”, he wondered. “Today, at four in the afternoon.” “Oh my gosh”, he shook his head laughing “Did you at least get some sleep on the plane?” You tried avoiding his gaze “Maybe…” “That means no.” You gave in “Yeah…. Not really.” “Aren’t you tired?”, he started actually worrying about you. “Maybe a little bit, but I want to spend time with you. I’ve really missed you.” Your conversation turned serious again. You wrapped your arms around yourself – that action didn’t go unnoticed by Chris. He took his jacket off his arm and got closer to you to wrap it around you “I’ve missed you too.” Your gaze wandered up to meet his blue eyes.

You kept on walking on talking about all the good old times you had together, with your right arm linked with his left. He was telling jokes, like nothing ever happened to the two of you, and showed you his favourite spots in the big City “Over there, you can get the best coffee, ever.” “Better than Starbucks?”, you asked with a raised eyebrow – he knew how much you loved Starbucks. “Way better than Starbucks”, he smiles and threw his head back shouting it into the world “WAY BETTER THAN STARBUCKS!” You jumped slightly to cover his mouth with your hand that still held your clutch since you were quite a bit smaller than him “Shhh, Chris”, you laughed at him. He lowered his head, to be closer to your face. The both of you stopped at a red traffic light. He looked deeply into your (Y/Y/C) eyes “I’m gonna take you there tomorrow.” “How do you know that I’m still going to be here?” You grinned at him. “Paul told me”, he shrugged his shoulders. “And what if I don’t want to get coffee?” The grin didn’t leave your face. “That’s not possible. You love it… and you love m-“, he got interrupted by the honking of a car. Your heads turned to the left, to see the driver of the car, telling you to cross the street since the lights had turned green. As you walked over the zebra crossing, Chris gave the driver a wave, to say ‘Thank You’.

As you were walking on the other side of the road, a wave of tiredness overcame you and you couldn’t hold back a yawn. “Well, someone’s tired”; Chris commented. “No, no, I’m good, I-“, you interrupted yourself by yawning again “OK, maybe I’m a bit tired.” “Do you want to go to my hotel room? You can sleep there for the night”, he offered you kindly. You looked at him with a knowing look and a cheeky grin “Are you trying to get me into your bed, Mr. Evans?” Chris put his hand over his heart “I cannot believe you would ever think of me in that way, Misses E- Miss (Y/L/N)”, he corrected himself, the mess-up getting unnoticed by you “So, shall we?” You nodded your head, with a tired smile on your face “Yes, please.”

Chris lead you to the hotel and checked in immediately. In the elevator, you started leaning on his shoulder. As the doors opened Chris gestured for you to go at first and he followed you shortly after. “238”, he informed you about his room number. You found it shortly after and waited in front of the door, for him to take out the card to open it. After getting it, you got to look around the room, but decided against it, since you were exhausted and landed face forward on the bed. “And at first you didn’t want to come here.” You rose your head and turned into his direction “You remember what the best part about hotel rooms is?” You questioned him with a smile. “Of course, you reminded me of it in every hotel room, we were staying in.”

You got up from the bed, not feeling as tired anymore as you did before, and made your way over to one of the pictures hanging on the wall. Chris laid down on the bed on his side, supporting his head with his hand. You took the frame off the wall and turned it around. Making your way back to the bed, you sat down positioned the painting in the right angle, for you and Chris to be able to look at the behind of it.

Chris took a closer look at it “Oh my…”, he tried controlling his laughter You looked at the hotel doodle “Wow.” “Oh…” “What? How can you not appreciate that?”, you asked the laughing actor, before continuing your comment “It’s the best one I’ve ever seen.” Chris started reading it out loud “’Gotta go, the hookers are here.” You were laughing out loud as well and couldn’t stop, just as much as Chris. “We probably shouldn’t touch anything in this room”, you commented, and Chris nodded.

You got up and put the frame back to its place, before making your way to the bathroom, where you started looking for something. Really quickly you found it – bathrobes. You started undressing when you heard Chris’ voice coming from the other room “What are you doing?” You didn’t answer but put on the robe over your underwear. Quickly you looked for some make-remover which you found and used, and also a brush. You opened the updo hairstyle you had been wearing the entire night, the feeling of freedom overcoming your scalp – you started brushing your hair. Grabbing the other one, you exited the bathroom and walked back to the man laying on the bed. You threw the robe into his face “That’s what I was looking for.”

He took the gown off his face, where it had landed and put his phone away, which he had been using before. His gaze fixed onto your silhouette “Wow… I forgot how amazing look with messy hair and no make-up.” You tried not to smile, looking at him “Stop…” You walked over to the bed and laid down next to him. “I’m serious. You know that. You’re beautiful”, he complimented you. You looked at him and started laughing uncontrollably. Chris gave you a weird look “What? What are you laughing about?”, he wondered. You tried to calm yourself down, so you were able to answer him “I’m sorry… but”, you started laughing, but calmed down again “I’ve been trying not to laugh the entire night, but your mustache is ridiculous.” He joined in with your laughter.

After a good amount of time of laughing, the both of you had calmed down again and started looking deeply into each other eyes. The actor extended his hand to sooth your hair and put a strand of it behind your ear “Why did we end things and didn’t stay in contact?” You asked him sadly. “I don’t know. I don’t think I want to know”, he admitted.

Your faces slowly got closer and before you could even realize what was happening, you were kissing the love of your life again – after two whole years of not even seeing each other. The kiss became more passionate by the second. He deepened it by putting his right hand on your hip and his left on the back of your neck. You grabbed him bay face. Everything went really fast and all of a sudden you were completely lying under him with your robe slightly open.

---

That was a long one, I’m sorry if it was too long! Please let me know :)

Thanks again to @itsthecomet for this lovely request, I hope you and everyone else enjoyed it!

Please ignore all of my grammar or spelling mess-ups :)

(none of the gifs are mine!)

I hope all of you have a wonderful day/night! :) <3

#chris evans imagine #chris evans imagines #chris evans x reader #chris evans masterlist #Chris Evans #chris evans x fem!reader #request #requests open #actor imagine #actor imagines #Actors Imagines #actor x reader #actor masterlist #chris evans mustache #chris evans mustache imagine #chris evans lobby hero #chris evans lobby hero imagine #celebrity imagines #celebrity imagine #celebrities imagines #celebrity x reader #celebrity masterlist

[gxldentrio]

Hearts Don’t Break Around Here

Prompt: you’re trying to toilet train your 20 pound cat and you sent me this photo and now I can’t stop crying out of laughter in public.

A/N: Happy birthday to my favourite human @fetchalgernon - I love you. Thank you for making it impossible for me to write modern!jily and not include algernon. So here you go, 100% of fluff and shenanigans, with next to 0 plot. I hope you enjoy <3

Thank you @yourbcky for the stellar beta job x

Read on FFN or AO3.

It’s three in the afternoon on a Saturday when Lily drops a bag of frozen peas all over the floor of her local supermarket.

It really isn’t her fault, to be perfectly honest. Yes, she’s making a fool of herself, crying with laughter as she struggles to gather the peas that have spilled all over the floor. and the others down the aisle - from the old woman looking at the yorkshire puddings, all the way to the middle aged man studying a ratty shopping list - probably think she’s mental now, but it really isn’t her fault.

Picture this: you’re running errands, casually making your way through every different sodding aisle of the nearest Tesco Express because Sirius and co. are coming over for dinner, and the only things you have in your fridge are mustard and cheese crackers – and even though you know full well they wouldn’t mind, you actually feel like trying for a change.

Your phone buzzes with a message notification, and when you slide your finger over the screen, you’re met with a picture of Algernon, your boyfriend’s insane and alarmingly orange cat, sitting next to an empty litter box. Yes, empty, because all of the litter is strewn across the midnight blue carpet, and you can practically feel James’ despair simply by looking at his face.

If this was the case, you’d probably be cracking up like an idiot as well.

   [15:02] james: toilet training algernon is not… going as expected

[15:03] lily: I dropped my peas.

[15:03] james: ???

[15:04] james: tht was a typo right

[15:05] lily: I was getting food for tonight and the picture you sent me made me drop my bag of peas.

[15:06] lily: They rolled everywhere, James. I hope you’re peased with yourself.

[15:06] james: :(

[15:06] james: btw i cant believe YOU made a pun

[15:06] lily: I know, you’re a terrible influence

[15:06] lily: Also, you’re cleaning that up.

[15:07]: james: just like u cleaned up the peas right

   After that, he adds an emoji, the one with the cool pair of sunglasses, and if it wasn’t so damn endearing, it would probably make Lily want to set her hair on fire. Or maybe she’d set his on fire, he likes it so much, the prat.

Then, Lily does the worst thing she could probably do in this moment – she takes another glance at that damn photograph, and cracks a smile, one that quickly turns into loud and uncontrollable laughter. Especially when she notices Algernon’s satisfied face, almost smirking at her, except not really because he’s a cat.

“Ma’am, are you alright?” one of the store clerks asks her, tentatively placing one hand on her bicep and the other one on the nape of his neck.

“Y-yes!” she answers, struggling – and failing miserably – to contain her amusement. She can already picture tomorrow’s gossip magazine headlines: “SUPERMODEL LILY EVANS LOSES IT AT LOCAL TESCO.”

The thought of it only makes her laugh even more, even harder, and she can feel it tugging at her core. At this point, Lily is pretty sure there are tears streaming down her cheeks.

“Are you quite certain?” the employee asks, looking a tad frightened. He looks about seventeen, a whole six years younger than Lily. She guesses no one warned him about redheaded madwomen when he signed up for the job. Still, Lily mentally praises him for the courage it must have taken to even approach her in the first place. She doesn’t really look threatening, at least she doesn’t think so, but Lily can only imagine what passers-by must be thinking.

  [15:18] james: I can’t believe u left me on read

[15:18] james: what kind of betrayal is that

  Lily glances at the screen, grinning at her boyfriend’s absolute lunacy. but nonetheless places her phone back in her pocket, choosing instead to pick up some peppers. It’s a tedious task, analysing vegetables, and Lily soon grows bored of it. She hears the tell-tale ping of her phone, and rolls her eyes.

  [15:19] james: answer me woman

[15:20] lily: Jesus Christ, James. What is it?

[15:20] james: can u pick up some toiler paper

  Quirking up one of her eyebrows, she replies.

  [15:21] lily: We have 20 rolls already?

[15:21] james: see the thing is luv

[15:21] james: algernon really likes 2 play

[15:22] james: [Photo Attachment]

 “Oh my god,” she whispers, staring at her screen in disbelief. “I leave them alone for ten minutes,” she says, running one hand through her hair, effectively ruining the pretty ponytail situation she had going on.

Quickly, she one-handedly scrolls through the contacts on her phone and presses ‘call’, all while still holding the damn peppers.

“Remus?” she sighs. “Are you busy right now?”

“Not really, why?”

“Would you mind popping over to our place for a bit? Just to keep an eye on James?”

“Is he still trying to toilet train the cat?” but it comes out more like a statement instead of a question.

“Yep.”

She hears him swallow through the call.

“I’ll be there in ten.”

“Thank you, you’re a star.”

It takes Lily around thirty minutes to finish up her shopping and for her to reach her house. It takes her around twenty-nine minutes and twenty-seven seconds for her to get over whatever internal fit she was having.

Sure, James may act like an idiot seventy percent of the time, but he’s her James and she loves him. More than she can count on all her fingers, more than she can stretch her arms around her back.

Carefully hoisting up her way-too-many shopping bags, she rings the doorbell with her elbow, the usual smile on her face, because really, how could she not smile when this is what she’s coming home to? Her boyfriend, his ridiculous cat – and, in this case, Remus.

It’s James who answers the door, immediately asking, “are you mad at me?”. Lily is pleased to notice that there’s not a piece of kitty litter in sight.

“Nah, I think I’ll keep you around for a little longer,” she replies, successfully pressing her lips into a line as thin as the horizon. She’s not mad, she just likes watching him sweat a little. Then, because the poor sod looks like he’s about to choke, she adds “so as long as you keep providing me with entertainment, that is.”

“Sounds like a plan,” he says, and a smile stretches across both their lips, as James leans in to quickly peck Lily on the cheek. “Let me help,” James adds, taking some of the plastic bags from her hands.

“Where’s Remus?” Lily asks, removing her pair of aviator sunglasses from her incredibly tangled hair.

“On the couch,” replies James, and she can practically hear the smirk on his voice when he adds, “apparently BBC One is playing Bake-Off reruns.”

That makes Lily stop dead in her tracks. She turns around, back to him, and asks “are you shitting me?”

“Nope,” James answers, popping the ‘p’ and swinging back and forth. “Season five, too.”

Lily gives her boyfriend a toothy grin, and her eyes light up like a kid’s at a toy shop. After shouting a quick hello to Remus, she bolts straight to the kitchen. In the heat of the moment, she pulls out a chair, and mentally curses James for always storing things in the highest possible cupboard.

Unfortunately, her excitement for the bake-off is suddenly cut off when she slips on the recently-wiped countertop and falls on the floor. After letting out a string of colourful ‘fuck’s, she sees James enter through the door and the picture of her covered in cornflakes and sprinkles sends him over the edge, laughing like a complete madman.

“Couldn’t you just have asked for help?” he asks, grinning as he reaches for a Winnie-the-Pooh ceramic bowl. He hears Lily huff from the ground, and it makes him throw his head back as he laughs even more.

To be perfectly honest, she actually likes that he’s a giant compared to her. Even if it means he teases her every time she can’t reach the higher cupboards, because when they hug she can hear his heartbeat closer than she knew was possible. Still, it’s not like Lily could ever admit that.

Instead, she shoots him down with a playful, “do tell, how is the weather up there?”

Surprisingly enough, James decides to stop being a cocky arsehole and stretches out one hand to help her up. As soon as they’re done preparing all the snacks, she heads to the living room, obviously leaving James to carry the tea and cereal by himself.

Lily plops down on the sofa and snuggles closer to Remus. However, instead of her semi-healthy snack options, what she gets is the sound of the doorbell.

“I’ll get it!” James says, the sound of one sharp knock echoing all throughout the house – Sirius.

“I brought wine,” is the first thing he says, and upon hearing Peter’s clumsy footsteps, Algernon comes running from the kitchen and jumps into his lap.

There’s a shriek, followed by Sirius Black’s murderous voice, “get. that thing. away from me.”

Lily gets up to grab some glasses, and the five of them – plus Algernon, of course – curl up on the sofa, with cheese crackers and whatever alcohol Sirius decided to bring this time.

“This tastes like bleach, Padfoot,” complains James, and at the same time Sirius counters with a “it’s an ’83 Chateau Margaux, mate”, Lily says “oh shut up, you love it.”

James pulls her closer to him and murmurs “I love you” into her hair, while Remus makes a point to tell them how disgustingly nauseating’ the pair of them are, but they don’t care.

As long as they have this, they’re happy.

It doesn’t matter that the newspapers make up new rumours every five days, or that Peter is about thirty-seven percent in love with Mary Berry – or Sirius with Paul, for that matter.

Later that night, when their friends have left and it’s about two in the morning, the two of them lay in bed, James’ fingers threading through Lily’s damp hair, their noses touching, whispers of love floating back and forward.

James guesses it must hurt, to have your heart so full that it feels like it could burst at any moment. It’s been so long, and they’re so young, and so, so in love. It’s not like it makes any sense, but then again, things hardly ever do whenever he’s involved.

It’s intoxicating, how in love he is. Every single thing about her feels overwhelming, in the best way possible. From her blood red hair, to the vivid green of her eyes, or the freckles trailing down her shoulders, he’s in love, love, love.

His mind races back to the velvety box hidden somewhere between his socks, all black and from the same brand he’s been using since he was fifteen.

Soon.

#jily #jily fic #fetchalgernon #hp #fyeahjamesandlily #everytime i procrastinated on tmd my efforts went into this silly fic #marauders #mine #my writing #txt #alrightevans #yourbcky #snapslikethis #cupcakeblake #prongsno #ravnclaws #hiddenpolkadots #bantasticbeasts

[pinksweatergettingbetter]

warning, the following has mainly snarky (and possibly furious) opinions on Spirit of Justice. Reader discretion is advised.

alright... here we go. we’re starting the big one. this... thing is almost over.

we’re going back to........ kooraheen to finish this.

time to strap in for the long haul.

-

did Dhurke hijack the PP show or was he just watching it and he decided to make that speech at his TV

i honestly can’t tell because of the weird way the scene was set. it looks like a reflection from a TV screen, but it also fades like a broadcast being intercepted...

fuck I'm just distracted by Dhurke’s stupid voice. and uncomfortable at the actress playing Rayfa. imagine being the princess and having your favourite show turn you into a weird damsel in distress being manhandled by ninjas. gross.

also yay! they’ve got the indiana jones orb!! time to melt off some faces...

-

ok it was a hijacked show... ...why is there a news report on this in America? Are American troupes assisting in the Kooraheenese war?

-

“Daaaa-aaaad. What’re you up to thiiiiis time???”

i love how not-giving-a-shit-about-it apollo is here. and by love it i mean hate it.

oh, your long-lost adoptive father just happens to pop up on television starting a revolution, and this is the first time you’ve heard from him in like 20 years? huh, no big deal.

-

AND ACE ATTORNEY TURNS INTO THE JERRY SPRINGER SHOW

-

oh noooo... he’s one of THESE guys... ururughhhhghghgh

-

“Wait... don’t tell me you haven’t told anyone about me, son?”

“I’m sorry, dad, it’s just you didn’t exist up until now...”

-

“you just show up here without warning after all this time... what gives?”

apollo’s got a point there, pa. also Dhurke’s theme reminds me of Coach Oleander’s from Psychonauts

-

Apollo just instinctively knows that nobody wants to be around him unless they’re getting labour out of him. That’s... honestly really depressing. I mean I know it’s supposed to be a joke but I just can’t bring myself to laugh.

its just... apollo is legitimately so bitter and sad that i just feel awful for him. 

-

yeesh... this whole thing just started off super sour.

-

wait, the piano has sentimental value to phoenix? they mentioned he never practiced on it and he didn’t like being a piano player... does that mean this piano is something phoenix just happened to own, and has its own backstory? I WANNA KNOW

(snerk)

ok thats mean but it did make me laugh

-

the JACKET IS APOLLO’S

IT IS APOLLO’S

HOLY SHIT

the rest of this case can be total shit but at least we figured out the mystery of the discarded red jacket. 

-

“our houseplant was called apollo”

“was it a cactus?”

“How’d you guess?”

“cause apollo doesn’t get enough hugs, either!”

-

apollos dad is so cool he reads his son’s personal shit out loud. what a great guy!

-

“That’s too bad! You seem like you’d be a fun, cool guy to hang out with!”

when he wasn’t being a rebel and not having time for his kids, obviously.

-

THERE IT IS! 

siblings dont know theyre siblings joke is funny both normally and ironically because the writers need to FUCKIN GET ON THAT

also i love that he’s basically like “hey son, this girl doesn't resent me! you should marry her so that i can continue to get favours out of you!”

-

“What did Mr. Dhurke mean when he said he was the man who raised you, apollo?” i dunno, trucy... think with your mind brains...

-

“How come you never told me?!”

“Sorry, it’s just, capcom hadn’t butchered my backstory at that point yet.”

-

I honestly find it really weird that Trucy’s all chirpy about this. She of all people should know the sting of a dad just up and disappearing on you.

-

Dhurke: I have to steal this orb. I’m asking you two because youre lawyers.

Kay Faraday, sitting in the Capcom warehouse: (sneezes)

-

Dhurke: I made a stupid gamble. Hope you can bail me out, son I haven’t seen in 20 years!

-

nooo.... don’t bring Kurain Village into this, pleeeeaaase... I don’t want to have my favourite village ruined for meeeeee....

-

:3c i chose nope

-

i wonder what Trucy would do if Zak waltzed in and immediately asked her for a favour. tbf phoenix would probably launch him into the sun before he could set foot into the office but...

-

Ok... So Dhurke doesn’t actually want to fix the legal system; he just said that he wants to gain immense spiritual power which will somehow give him the legal authority to RULE Kooraheen. 

how does spiritual power have any effect on land deeds anyway? 

-

“Only the rulers of Kooraheen have ever laid eyes on the orb, Apollo”

and Ahlbi’s seen the box.

-

“I figured you were poor as fuck so I brought you a plate of sushi!”

ok either A) He thought so little of Apollo that he assumed he’d just be starving on the street

or B) He’s been keeping tabs on Apollo and knows that the WAA doesn’t make a lot of cash, yet he hasn’t made any attempt to contact Apollo himself. Until he needs a favour.

what a.... great guy.

-

what the FUCK

“here, as my second present... a PICTURE OF YOUR REAL DAD, THE ONE WHO CARED ABOUT YOU AND IS DEAD. HOORAY!”

i can tell theyre trying to do the ‘Hagrid gives Harry a photo album of his family for comfort” but its REALLY NOT THE SAME CIRCUMSTANCES.

-

His name was... JJ.

-

~as you know~

also why would a musician perform with magicians? 

-

y’know, ive seen pictures of Jove Justice so far. and A) he looks like a tool, and B) the designers were lazy as fuck and just slapped Apollo’s hair onto Phoenix’s face. I had a pretty negative opinion of him initially. I was thinking I wouldn’t like any of Apollo’s new dads.

But you know what? If they go deeper into Jove’s backstory and prove that he was a caring father, I’m ready to completely drop any criticisms of him and carry this guy on my shoulders

cause compared to Dhurke ill bet he's a freakin angel 

-

...welp... back to Kurain village. At least it’ll remind me of bygone days...

...heh, aw. it’s cute. i like the sparrows on the roof.

ooh! an updated theme, too! not quite as nice as the original but it is nice.

-

he was full of piss and vinegar

jesus

-

yeah, kids run around naked. its not super surprising.

-

“man, I miss that hut...”

apollo youre gonna make me cry;;

-

Ema: :) i’ll show you the way to Dr. Buff. SURPRISE, HES DEAD! AHAHAHAHHAHA

-

NOOO

MY SYSTEM FUCKED UP AND STARTED ME OVER FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE CHAPTER AAARGRRJHRFJ

id gone on a short break and i come back to this (weep)

-

...

does Dhurke have boobs..?

...or just extremely prominent pecs...

-

phew ok back on track. 

wait hold on. if Dr. Buff is in Kurain village, where is he staying exactly? All the houses in Kurain village are old-style Japanese; this appears to be a modern day number.

-

“please tell me youre joking”

“as if i’d come out here for a few laughs, Apollo”

yeah but youre not above leading him to the dr’s study and THEN telling him he’s dead WTF

-

ahah. further proof that stepladders are superior.

i mean i know he didnt actually fall off that ladder by accident or whatever but still

-

“you could say he died an honourable death...”

...crushed under his nerd books like a fuckin cartoon :T

-

YEAH

POPS

POHLFUCKYA

-

“I’m so sorry... It seems you’ve had quite a life.”

Why else would she say that except that some poor dialogue translator is secretly begging the series to stop fucking up his backstory

-

“I mean, middle-aged man with long hair and an eye-patch? You don’t see that everyday.”

just give Valant an eyepatch

-

hang on. why does an archeologist in America have Kooraheen’s founding orb anyway? I thought it burnt peoples’ faces off. And was super precious. Queen Garananana doesn't seem like someone who’d just hand out a precious ball like that.

-

oh huh they found an ugly dalek. thats two dalek references in this game now...

-

did i just... have a ladder conversation about a relic that looks like an airplane.

-

why does everyone keep making blithe jokes about the doctors horrible death..? does that usually happen or am i misremembering 

-

WHAT THE STATUE OF AMI AND THE URN AND THE GRAVY SCROLL ARE THERE NOOOOOO YOU GET YOUR SLIMY HANDS OFF THEM SOJ, PUT THEM BACK IN T&T WHERE THEY BELONG

god there’s even a coffee shelf. i guess this side of the room is the “Relics of a better game” section.

-

polly the clean freak. what a sweetheart :)

-

aw yeah baby

its printing time

-

oh yeah i forgot this version of printing SUCKS

but i do like the little pap sound it makes when you put down powder

-

...they have Datz and Dhurkes prints on file.

You guys sure rock at being undercover. 

-

ill give them credit for having the Dance of Devotion not rhyme in English.

seeing lyrics again just gives me flashbacks to Serenade tho

Guitar, Guitar... Up together to the sky...

-

MAY-OR DE-WEY

MAY-OR DE-We

wait that has the same number of syllables if you just say the pun

 PAUL-A TI-SHON

PAUL-A TI-SHON

-

...why the fuck is he in a palanquin 

anybody in a palanquin is bad news ALSO WHY DOES IT SAY RECLAIM THE GLORY OF KURAIN 

KURAIN DOES NOT HAVE POLTIICIANS. ESPECIALLY NOT MALE ONES.

SOJ. SOJ WHAT IS THIS FUCKERY.

-

oh yeah he’s a bad guy

-

...king of this fine nation. First of all... America doesn’t have kings. Second of all, Kurain isn’t a country, it’s a small village. Either he’s a moron or SOJ is fucking up at unprecedented speeds 

-

...did his theme song just ‘wheeee’

-

“Jerk Q. Public”

pffft

-

i wish you were golden boy. then you'd be morally questionable but entertaining. 

-

I'm very uncomfortable 

-

k so we’re back in Kurain and so far we’ve seen Zero women in total apart from Ema.

even the unnamed heckler was an old man.

is this the same Kurain Village I know?

-

wh- talk??

what do you mean talk???

i dont wanna talk to this guy he's a dickcheese!!!

-

Trucy’s 17 and she hasn’t studied politics at least a little yet? ...weird

-

“Its real name is the Crystal of Ami Fey”

wait what

-

“It’s been passed down for generations in the Atishon family”

WAIT WHAT

is he dicking around or is he distantly related to maya

or is he just totally dicking around

if so how dare he use Ami’s name in vain.

-

where is Datz from anyway

-

paul i dont mean to dash your hopes but becoming grand high emperor of kurain village will in fact not make you king of the world

-

datz sure is a good rebel... getting caught... and put in jail...........

damnit, Vore Machine, what am i gonna do with you?

-

well Apollo, from demon to deer. thats not bad.

-

dog-faced cop..??

if youre very sneakily referencing our old pal Gumshoe youve got another thing coming, Vore Machine. In the form of my fist.

-

“A shut-in? Sounds like it will be a challenge just to get a conversation going.”

yeah.... not like youve.... ever dealt with someone like that....... before....... hehe.... heh..............

-

how long has Datz been in jail if he already knows the cafeteria itinerary 

-

um guys; maybe you should be a tiny bit more concerned about Athena??

-

i just realized the Shichishito is gold. It’s green, you idiots. Or is that one too bent and bloody for display??

-

thats it folks thats spirit of justice 

apollo has become a living title drop

hes fuckin dead

-

what kind of bullets were those

-

yeah apollo, a fledgeling is equivalent to a private.

...also youre not a fledgeling youre near full experience capacity. this is your third... (and last...) year.

-

so Dhurke is in full stealth mode until it comes to a remotely operated drone that could have literally anybody on the other side? brilliant, pal. 

this is why your revolution’s taken like 23 years to get off the ground, jsyk.

-

...k komandir?

i thought you were supposed to be a parody of The Soldier. what are you doing calling people by Russian military names? did the red scare not happen in this reality?

-

pfft 

it’s so cute. 

im struggling between finding it adorable and being uncomfortable 

-

“in other words, something caused him to withdraw from the world...”

maybe his mom’s death??? maybe?????

does anyone in this game understand how a bad thing make a peoples’ brain go???

-

pretty impressive that a woman’s body could provide sufficient cushioning to soften such a drop.

-

lol. death attributed to random maniac. thanks soj.

-

“Private Justice! You’ve suffered a loss just like mine!”

“I have... and thats how I know how you feel.”

yes, i can remember exactly happened when i was a one-year old in diapers. exactly the same kind of pain and trauma.

look i know theyre trying to have a moment but there’s a huge difference between growing up orphaned and being recently bereaved. Sure, Apollo’s seen his fair share of hardship and his experiences aren’t to be devalued, but it’s not the same kind of pain as having your parents die later in your life, especially with the mom’s horrific demise.

Honestly, it’d make more sense if he brought up Clay, since Clay was with him since he was very small and his death was sudden and deeply unfair.

BUT CLAY’S IN THE PAST, CLAY DOESN’T EXIST, WHO’S CLAY?? I DONT KNOW BACK TO SPIRIT OF JUSTICE

-

YEAH

POHLFUCKYA DURKE

dhurke the burk  amiright attorneys 

-

“the opaque crystal orb is the key”

>needless adjective

>will come into play later in court

-

um so nobody’s gonna mention the blonde lady on his desktop background or........

-

i like sarge. i hope they dont turn sour when theyre revealed.

-

nice boot

ooh phosphorescence! neato!

-

pearl: hello I'm here to do something ive never done before to provide clues for this case. i hope i’ve been useful! thank you, and goodnight.

...as contrived as this is, i am glad to see someone who actually comes from kurain village.

-

wow, the gangs all here huh

-

so they renamed Eagle Mountain “”””mt. mitama”””” eh

nice...............

-

“you are at that age, after all...”

says apollo who's like 24

also why is she talking about all the women leaving the village? i thought it was the men. is this why i haven't seen any ladies? they all just shipped off downtown?? and of course there’s no mention of the creepy oppressive atmosphere and strictness of the village...

-

nice alliteration apollo

-

rain spirit at a bus stop and you hacks didnt make a Totoro joke?? lame

-

“Dj’you bring a light?”

“Ņ̮͔̜̬͖̝ͫͦ̄̒̀̾̆̓̀ͤͨ͋̓̈̑̂͗́ͤo̸̵͈͎̤͇̤̙̯͔̙͖̞̳̙̠̹̞̲̭ͣ́ͫ͌ͦ̒́͞ͅ?ͯͩͨ̾̅̈ͮ̉̀̌͛̆͑̚҉̧͓̠͎̠͎̀̀”

-

how can you not recognize a foreign voice you idiot

-

“He tried to fucking kill us but he also gave us this flashlight. To um... see our slow death by starvation better I guess?”

-

“We couldn’t get back to where we started if we wanted to”

if you wanted to??? thats exactly what you want!!!

-

Klavier: Hello! This is flashback Klavier here to say: Don’t you miss me? Haha. I miss existing too. Oh well! See you next time~ ...i if there is one.

-

DEAD

-

aw, lucky you! you lucked into falling to your death directly to where you wanted to go!

-

“Yes! Time to find that orb! When we have it, we can....rot here for eternity.”

...ok i know the doc found a way out but still

-

wHAT THE FUCK

THAT HOLE IS LIKE 40 FEET UP

...oh well, if phoenix can survive it, so can they..?

-

i love that there are various sea-related items scattered around that give an obvious way out but only yield “durr??? a sea thing??? how this get here??????????” when inspected 

-

whats with dhurkes’ magic eyes

-

mmmmmmmm a slide puzzle great

“maybe the ppictures correspond to the song”

NO

REALLY??

what is with this game and not outright stating the obvious? its not like it spoils the player or anything; it just makes the WAA look like idiots

-

fuck this I'm gonna finish this stupid puzzle without this game’s help or die trying 

-

...ah. my personal need for pattern and order blinded me to the truth

oh well; it’s open now. i’m gonna smash Eshiro’s stupid smirking face with it.

-

“opening that box means you're the best lawyer ever! enjoy leaving the series forever!!!”

-

“A royal stole that orb”

stole it... as opposed to just taking it and doing whatever they want with it because it’s theirs and there’s absolutely no reason to have to “steal” it. 

unless they wanted to frame the rebels i guess but like. theyre rebels. theyre already pretty hated

-

“it would be seen as utter sacrilege to let a foreign man study this artifact”

oh also it would debunk that whole “explodes your face if you look at it” thing

-

...here we go...

-

“he used to be a nice kid, but now...”

he’s an enourmous shitstain?

“he tried to convict trucy for a crime she didnt even commit...”

ok, apollo. there are a zillion valid reasons to hate sadmad, and yes, his reasoning in that trial was shit. but just being a prosecutor and doing what a prosecutor is meant to do doesn’t make him evil. he isn’t about to just roll over because the defendant’s your sis–– er, best friend.

-

he... could be playing the long game, and interfering could fuck up his plan, Dhurke. Also how was he a rebel and then somehow managed to get into good graces with the royals? It’s already been proven that Dhurke’s Dummy Dragon Gang suck at being stealthy or having any sense of self-preservation. I doubt they just wouldn’t recognize Sadmad

-

“it’s not conviction that fills his heart; it’s resignation and despair”

are you telling me Sadmad is the equivalent of a guy in a dead end office job taking it out on his coworkers

-

“The only thing I know for sure is... Nahyuta is suffering, and he is suffering in silence”

edgeworth: been there, done that!

blackquill: BEEN THERE, DONE THAT

-

ya sure put a lot of stock in Sadmad, Dhurke. i mean i guess he’s your son but seriously; if you're a proper rebel you’d cut your losses and get on with shit already with or without him

-

...y’know, this speech about lawyers being like dragons kind of doesn’t have the same emotion impact and gravitas that the non-dragon one in T&T did.

-

oh how... charming...

*America’s* badge is shaped like a sunflower... and Kooraheen’s is shaped like a buggy eye.

-

YARGH

dont DO that

your voice is BAD

-

“he’s my son! therefor he has to believe in the same thing as me! nothing, not even torture could have changed him!”

cue Gredgeworth’s awkward cough from the afterlife.

-

“You know, I remember when Nahyuta and I were kids, he used to say with great pride ‘I have the blood of a dragon in me!’”

cue tiny apollo feeling left out and alone because he doesn’t know what kind of blood is in him 

-

>reform court system

>rescue son

well... i guess there could be worse reasons to start a revolution.

-

“I mean, what are fathers for?!”

( ‘I... I wouldn’t know...’) 

WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT, GAME

ARE YOU TRYING TO BREAK MY HEART

YOU CAN’T GIVE APOLLO ALL THESE EMOTIONS WHEN YOU’RE ALSO SHAFTING HIS ASS AT THE SAME TIME

SHAME ON YOU

-

HE HAS A BROKEN ARM

HOWS HE GONNA SWIM

-

oh its high tide yay

oh it’s... really high tide

wow.

-

well this is fun. i daresay id really like this sequence... if it wasn’t in this game.

-

“oh no... the water might carry me up to the way out of here... how awful.”

lol can you imagine if this was timed tho

-

oh hey it’s the DD panic panic song. i liked that one. it deserves its spot in the suspense music roster.

-

y’know at this point i kinda hope he really just dies

wouldn’t that be a kicker

not that i hate apollo or anything but I'm just............... so tired

-

apollo’s pretty calm for a drowning person

i’ve nearly suffocated before and the only thing going through my head was AIR AIR AIR GET AIR GET AIR GET AIR AIR AIR

-

baby apollo: waahhhh!!! we’re both perfectly dry!!! the artist didn’t bother to make us look wet in the flashback!

-

A) Little Apollo doesn’t even call Dhurke “Daddy” or “Papa” despite being raised by him since infant hood, possibly meaning Dhurke gave him the ‘You’re adopted” speech pretty early. Or else kids that “aren’t really my son” have to go by name basis. See? Nahyuta calls him father. 

B) Haha! Boys don’t cry, not-son! Suck those sissy tears back up into your skull, or you’ll look gay! It doesn’t matter that you’re like five and you almost drowned to death! Don’t embarrass me!

-

“Don’t ever hesitate to call when you need me”

oh but apollo your ass gets shipped back to america tomorrow ok

-

no seriously. on one hand; why did apollo get sent away? why couldn’t he be a rebel alongside nahyuta and fight for his family? on the other hand, why didn’t dhurke send nahyuta with him? if apollo’s going away because it’s dangerous, why is nahyuta staying with dhurke in the path of danger?

to be honest I'm ashamed that I'm crying, but it’s less about this scene being sad as fuck and more about the fact that I know that none of this is ever really resolved. Dhurke is still a piece of shit who made no attempt to contact apollo for years until he needed a favour out of him. and Apollo has to live with this stupid backstory because ESHIRO thought it would be dramatic and cool. Apollo’s going to “go home”, leave the series... He doesn’t even know he’s leaving his last scrap of real family who gives a shit about him behind in America.

Apollo doesn’t deserve this. 

-

Dhurke, with superman theme playing in the background: Redeeming my character! By saving your life! Redeeming my character! By saving your life! Though only a heartless, shithead person, would leave you behind to die! So this isn’t great.

-

...is he holding him in his broken arm

wait is that arm even broken

has he just been holding it like it’s in a sling for no reason this whole time

-

“Still can’t swim, eh?”

oh fuck off 

-

“Good thing your name’s not Neptune, hahahaha!”

A) OH FUCK OFF

B) NEPTUNE IS A SEA GOD, HE’D ACTUALLY BE RESISTANT TO WATER

-

WHOA FUCK HOLY SHIT

vore machine came out of nowhere and oh

also he is also laughing at a guy who almost drowned

well aren’t these two just the greatest men on earth huh

Trucy: :) lets make this drowning thing seem like no big deal by playing it off and not even asking if you're okay at all :))))

-

great... now he owes his life to him.... that completely cancels out every other piece of baggage.....

remember........ when edgeworth owed his life to phoenix......... remember how he was 100% okay after that and not fucked up at all................ remember how he just popped back into the series without any changes whatsoever apart from being phoenix’s friend again........................................

-

“GLAD TO SEE YOURE NOT CRYING SON; IM GLAD YOU GREW UP INTO THE EMOTIONALLY STUNTED MAN I ALWAYS WANTED, EVEN WITHOUT MY STELLAR PARENTAL GUIDANCE! THAT LONELY ORPHANAGE MUST HAVE TOUGHENED YOU UP GOOD! HAH-HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!”

-

y’know in the interim i was thinking 

Rebel Apollo would be great. he’d probably be an enormous goofus but at least he’d be happy and maybe Dhurke’s shitty plan would get off the ground because an actual smart person would be part of the team.

-

listen to that fuckin “we solved the case” music.

(sigh)

at least apollo is eating.

Turnabout Revolution... End

heh i wish

-

“Sure wish Nahyuta was here”

I don’t.

-

you fucking morons. you colossal fucking asshats. i knew this was coming

Dhurke: DURR LETS TALK ABOUT THIS EXTREMELY IMPORTANT ITEM IN A PLACE WHERE WE KNOW THE GUY WHO WANTS THIS EXTREMELY IMPORTANT ITEM IS! WHATS A STEALTH????

This is why the revolution has taken 20 FCKIN YEARS to take off. Because Dhurke and his band of nincompoops are all incompetent fuckwits.

-

huh i can see where Nahyuta gets his magic clap from.

also say it you loser say bitch

say bitch

say bitch

say bitch

-

A) If the “crystal” is a fake thing, his police report probably wouldn’t check out cause I'm P sure that people can’t just file police reports for anything without proof of previously owning it.

B) Dhurke. You’re a rebel. Shoot someone. Throw a smoke bomb. Gently jog away? Idk if that works in America but it sure as hell works in Kooraheen.

-

no. don’t do it. don’t you fucking do––

oh, i just saw a ghost.

The ghost of the potential any sequels past AJ had. It blinked at me sorrowfully before CAPCOM busted it and crammed it into the Containment Unit.

-

(sigh) Ok (most likely) fake shit aside, that would make Atishon related to Maya, and the “heirloom” would more probably be Maya’s. Why is this excuse present at all anyway it’s stupid.

-

Apollo it shouldn’t fuckin matter; it’s a court case. Just prove the orb isn’t the Crystal of Ami Fey and you win the case. You know that Phoenix doesn’t cheat and you’re pretty certain that the crystal really is the Founder’s Orb, so you shouldn’t be upset about anything. This isn’t a murder trial, it’s a dispute over ownership of an item. You know you’re in the right, so you ought to be able to win the trial. There’s literally no stakes apart from the fact that you’re facing your boss... but so what? That can happen... I assume, I’m not versed in that sort of thing. But either way, lawyers sometimes have to face off against each other... it happens. You had to face Nahyuta. Now you face Phoenix. Unless you think Phoenix will cheat, or that you don’t have sufficient info on the orb, then there’s legitimately no fucking problem. I mean yeah, sucks to go to court, but who gives a fuck? Win the trial and skip back to Kooraheen to overthrow the oppressive regime.

-

I don’t 

what is the fucking problem

one of you gets payed, you both work at the same place

it doesn’t matter

-

APOLLO. You KNOW his methods. You know that he wins because his clients are innocent, and would graciously hand over victory if it was clear you were in the right; YOU HAVE TO KNOW THIS. YOU’RE HIS BIGGEST FAN, REMEMBER??

Unless you think he’d fucking cheat for a skeezy politician for money in which case, nice. Gotta love that trust and belief that DD was building up there.

“Can I do it? Can I fight him?” YES ITS NOT EVEN A MURDER TRIAL

-

“May the best attorney win” 

well so much for finding the truth or whatever. Also Phoenix should be proud that Apollo is willing to go up against him; it shows he’s coming into his own. There’s literally no reason for them to be on shit terms right now.

-

“A fine mess I’ve gotten you into, son.”

Hey shithead that wasn’t an apology. Also yeah, go on and on about how good a lawyer Phoenix is just to scare Apollo. Brilliant.

-

“The first step of your revolution, huh?”

The first step. 20 years and he’s only just taking the first step. Not the first step to the end of the revolution; the first step to the revolution itself.

-

Welp, we’re off to fight over the possession of an oversized marble in court. Seeya next time i guess...

#ooc #sulking over SOJ #soj spoilers #soj spoilers obvs] #things we've learned today: Dhurke Sadmahdi is a lazy insensitive incompetent pieceof shit

[esteliel]

Les Mis London Jan 10

This is as always not a real review but more notes on things that stood out to me (heavily skewed towards Old Men obviously.)

First off - Hayden’s wig! :D He had very nice whiskers and a ponytail that suited him very well. SO MUCH BETTER than that atrocious Broadway wig, not that it would be possible to be worse than that. I still don't know what they were thinking. In any case, the classic ponytail!Javert look suits him very well, and they also give us the tousled, strands pulled free from the ponytail and hanging into his face disheveled look for the suicide. I'm very pleased by this, even though he managed not to rip his trousers this time, but you can't have everything! :P

Hayden is still the smirkiest and smuggest Javert I've ever seen. During Toulon, Javert keeps smirking at Valjean for pretty much their entire interaction. He doesn’t use his cudgel as much as Jeremy does, but when he holds out the yellow ticket for Valjean, he doesn’t release it until Valjean turns his head to meet his eyes, and then Javert once again gives him a smirk before releasing the ticket. (Javert did no one ever teach you how to flirt properly???) He also really blatantly rolling his eyes during Fantine's “there’s a child that sorely needs me” and is in general still very smugly expressive.

Also Javert uses his cudgel to hand back Madeleine’s coat after the Runaway Cart. Teevert makes a very good clothes hanger.

During the Confrontation, when Valjean breaks the chair, Teevert gets all wide-eyed and terrified in response and stumbles several steps back! (This is aesthetically very pleasing to me but at the same time really not in character at all. I think I prefer my Javerts a bit less fearful there – I always appreciated Secombvert's bulldog Javert who you can feel is just itching for that physical fight in that situation.)

Simon also does the rock opera wailing of “there is power in me yet, my race is not yet do-one!” :D

When Simon lifts the cart from Fauchelevent he makes eye contact with Javert for the first few long seconds which is quite lovely and one of the few moments where I genuinely liked him.

Simon also gets angry with the Thénardiers and takes a menacing step forward while they haggle over Cosette, while they cower in response.

In general, Simon wasn’t outstanding, but okay. I’ve heard him called aggressive which – he wasn’t really most of the time, not physically, except for one or two scenes. But for example – his BHH was beautifully gentle as it started and I was already thinking to myself how lovely it was to hear it treated as a prayer, and then he basically shouted the last verse while doing some incredibly over the top gesturing with his arms? Come on. You don’t need that. We get it.

Javert interacts with the sniper again! It was one of the things that stood out to me from his Broadway performance because I've never seen a Javert do that before – and he's still doing that in London! It's a detail I like because I can just see Javert still trying to do his work undermining the insurgents even when he's a prisoner. On the other hand, he also still shouts “No!” when Enjolras hands him over to Valjean, which I find a bit more confusing because he's never shown fear before. Is it some special sort of reaction because it is Valjean he's given to? I just have a hard time seeing it make sense because Brick!Javert is so coldly delighted by the fact that Valjean will murder him because that is what criminals do.

Also once again A+ smirking during Valjean's Revenge when he pulls Valjean’s rifle against his chest. Simon on the other hand is unfortunately way more aggressive than Peter here, he just grabs Javert and wrestles him to the ground which seems a bit in direct opposition of “I'm a man no worse than any man”? Peter always managed to make that seem like an act of gentle exasperation instead.

Also Enjolras was agitatedly whispering to Javert at the Barricade when he was tied up and I'd love to know what he was saying to him!

Hayden still does the kneeling and visibly praying bit during One Day More! (I'm usually not into overtly religious Javerts but given that the musical gives him that background, okay. Though Adam Monley will always be my fave in that regard!) And he's still mostly singing his Suicide now instead of the growling/shouting from the Australian audios which is a relief as that never worked for me.

Simon's old Valjean is also disappointing; his wig is ugly and matted, no more lovely fluffy hair. ;__; Augh I will forever miss Peter's death scene and his grace and nobility and gentleness!

On the other hand, Simon does the Cosette nose boop before dying, awww!

Jonny Purchase was on again as Enjolras for this show, and I liked him more this time! Also Andy Conaghan was on as Bishop & Grantaire – I really liked him! No dick jokes from this Grantaire, but lots of e/R hugging. I'm usually not into e/R fanservice on stage at all, but that's probably because most stage Grantaires are awfully obnoxious, and Andy is so lowkey about everything that what there is is actually enjoyable to watch. His Bishop was also really lovely!

Lucy O’Byrne’s Fantine is quite enjoyable. Rachelle Anne Go is still my fave, but she's quite watchable. I also really liked Charlotte Kennedy's Cosette! Something about Zoe's voice just never worked for me in the role at all, so this is a real relief. On the other hand, this gets unfortunately hampered by the fact that there's no real Marius/Cosette chemistry on stage. It was my first time seeing Paul Wilkins' Marius, and he didn't leave a huge impression on me either. On the other hand, he's no Chris, so I'm not complaining!

The one real let down is that Hollie O'Donoghue's Eponine does absolutely nothing for me. :/ I don't know what it is, she doesn't even look like an Eponine to me – which is weird because I've loved lots of different Eponines and the only thing they have in common is the costume. Which leaves – the acting/body language, I guess? I really can't pin it down, I just came away with this impression that I saw a woman trying to dress up as Eponine, instead of being Eponine. A real disappointment, especially since I loved Eva Noblezada. :(

Final verdict: I'm really completely baffled by how my impression of Hayden changed from Broadway to London. It has to be the directing? Because what he does – the smirking and smugness and swagger – is actually quite entertaining to watch if it's reined in where it matters, whereas whatever was going on with Broadway seemed to encourage people to just go over the top with everything.

It's still not how I personally see musical!Javert (I loved Earl's tight control and focus which makes the unraveling of the derailment so much more powerful) but like this, it's entertaining to watch and at least feels consistent in itself and I just genuinely had fun watching!

#do I need a theatre tag #talking about les mis #london trip 9