#john orbit tries to draw

[gogh-with-the-flow]

Part 4 of cheating!Soap. Simon's POV. Angst. Potentially ooc Simon.

---

Simon Riley is a bad man. He wasn't given much of a choice really. He was dealt a bad hand that kept getting worse and worse. He tried to live a good life, despite his childhood, but it was all taken away from him in fire and blood. So he threw himself into it headfirst. He dove into it and found comfort in the fire and blood. He knew fire and blood. He's good at fire and blood.

Simon Riley is a lonely man. All his life, he's never had anyone. He keeps everyone he meets at arms-length at a minimum. He doesn't do love. He doesn't believe in it. The last time he tasted it was from his mother, and that taste has long since been replaced by the tinny taste of blood. He's comfortable being alone. He fills his time with work, and on the rare occasion he's sent back home to his barren flat in Manchester, the most he does is find a quick fuck at a pub.

He doesn't care about their names, he doesn't particularly care if they're a man or woman or something in between. He doesn't care what they look like, he hardly looks at them at all. They're just a means to an end for him. Just a warm hole to stuff himself into to feel good for a bit, to make his head quiet for a bit. He leaves once he's done. He never stays the night, never even stays much longer than to tie off his condom and pull his trousers back up.

It all changed when he met that damned spitfire of a man John MacTavish. Goes by the name 'Soap'. A ridiculous nickname in Simon's opinion, but then again, he goes by Ghost, so he doesn't have much room to talk.

Soap is loud and brash, but he can be careful and focused, too. He's intensely loyal and has a deep sense of justice. He fights for what's right, Ghost has seen it. He makes the icy shell around Ghost's heart melt, ever so slightly.

It's a slow progression, the way Soap draws Ghost into his orbit. Ghost doesn't even fully realize its happened until Las Almas. There was a moment when he thought he lost Johnny- when did Soap become Johnny? They had gotten separated and Ghost waited for him. Ghost never waited. But he couldn't, in that moment, hiding out in a church with a whole militia after him, even fathom leaving Johnny behind.

By the time Simon realized he loved Johnny it was too late. Johnny was married. Simon hadn't noticed that when he read Soap's dossier years ago. It must have happened in the time they had known each other. Simon had never pinned Johnny as someone to keep his cards so close to his chest like that, but he was proved wrong.

Johnny didn't wear his ring in the field. It was a liability, not just to have jewelry on in life-or-death situations, but also for anyone to see he was married, be it friend or foe. He didn't find out until after Chicago. It seemed that Soap's near-death experience at the top of a skyscraper had shaken him more than he'd let on. He'd snuck off at the bar to use the payphone and Ghost had followed.

"Hey, its me... Just needed to hear your voice, bonnie... No, no, I'm alright, just a wee bit banged up... Yeah, I miss you too, lovie... No I promise I'm alright. Just got a bit worried the whole 'til death do us part' thing was comin' sooner than expected... Sorry, bonnie... No, no, you're right, it's not funny. I'm sorry... I'll be home in a few days... Yeah... I'll see you then. I love you."

Simon hated you. He hated you and he didn't even know you. He didn't even know you existed and he hated you. Who were you? Some civilian? Some random woman who decided to shack up with Johnny? Probably just chasing valor or benefits or something. What could you possibly have to offer someone like Johnny? You could never understand him the way Simon does. Their bond is forged in fire and blood. You could never hope to understand it. They'd been through hell together. And yet you've wormed your way in between them. You, a woman he doesn't even know, have ruined everything. But Simon, ever the stoic sentinel, keeps it all under wraps with practiced patience. He didn't survive this long by letting his emotions control him. He'll figure out a way to fix this.

Then several months later, Simon meets you. It's after another mission, and you're picking up Soap from base, who had gotten a mild concussion and couldn't drive himself. You're there, waiting for him with a lovesick smile on your face. Simon watches as you embrace Johnny, wrapping him in your arms and holding him for a long time. Too long, in Simon's opinion. And then you pull back and hold Soap's head in your hands, turning his face side to side to get a better look at him. You laugh at something he says. Simon sneers. Oh, aren't you just perfect? A sweet little doting wife?

And then Johnny brings you over to introduce you two. You shake Simon's hand with both of yours, gratitude broadcast to the world as you thank him for getting your Johnny home safe. Your Johnny. Simon hates it. He hates how sincere you are. He wishes you were something worse, something worth hating. But Ghost reads people. He's great at it. But he can't read anything but genuine in you. And it makes him hate you more.

It isn't fair, Simon thinks. You don't deserve someone like Johnny. You haven't earned him. You haven't fought for him like Simon has. You haven't fought alongside him like Simon has. Simon has suffered. His whole life has been nothing but blood and fire. Doesn't he deserve something good for once? Hasn't he earned it? Even the devil himself got to taste heaven before he fell to earth.

That's what he tells himself on that night. The night they were stuck in that frozen safe house in the middle of Bumfuck, Russia. They'd narrowly escaped the enemy, and they didn't dare poke their heads out for risk of being spotted. Soap's radio had broken in the escape. Ghost was the only one with a means to communicate with Watcher. She tells him exfil will be there in the morning. He unplugs his radio. He tells Soap he can't get through. He tells himself that he's justified. He's a devil seeking a taste of heaven.

And what is Johnny if not heaven? Simon needs him. He needs to taste him. Johnny is worried. Simon can feel it rolling off him in waves. Simon can make it all better for him. Just for tonight.

"Who knows when exfil's gonna get here?" He asks. "What do we have to lose? It's just for tonight. Just let me take care of you, Johnny."

Simon can feel the hesitation in Johnny's body when he kisses him. But Johnny let's Simon lay him down. Simon whispers words into Johnny's ear. Not quite words of reassurance. But Simon Riley is a bad man, and a lonely man, and those two things make a nasty combination.

Simon tastes every part of Johnny's body he can get his mouth on. Neither man has bathed in days, and a lesser man would be disgusted, but Simon has experienced far worse. Besides, nothing about Johnny could ever disgust him.

And when Johnny let's him inside, Simon, that devil, finally tastes his slice of heaven. A whole life of suffering was worth is just to feel Johnny beneath him. It's perfect, he thinks. Even if only for the night. Simon looks Johnny in the eye. Simon stays with him afterward. Simon sleeps beside him.

Then morning comes. Exfil comes. Regret comes for Johnny, but not for Simon. Maybe he shouldn't had lied about his radio, but it was worth it, wasn't it? But now Johnny won't look at him. He won't speak to him. He practically runs from him when they land.

No, no, no. This wasn't how it was supposed to go. This was supposed to fix things! It was supposed to fix what you had ruined! You, Soap's perfect wife with your perfect life, perfectly ruining Simon's. Johnny was supposed to see that he needed Simon more. Johnny was supposed to see that he needed Simon as much as Simon needed him. What happened? What went wrong? Simon blames you. He always blames you.

Simon calls Johnny late that night, after he's sure you must be in bed. He pleads with Johnny to come to his senses. It wasn't a mistake! How could he say that? How could he say that it was wrong when Simon had never felt so right in his whole life? It's your fault. You've got Johnny trapped under some kind of spell. You can't love him like Simon could, like Simon does. Simon changes tactics.

"You have to tell her," Simon tells him. Maybe if you know, you'll leave. Then Simon can have Johnny all to himself, without you getting in the way again. "The guilt will eat you up, it's better if you just tell her. Its the right thing to do." Johnny reluctantly agrees.

Simon waits for Johnny to call him the next night, to tell him you've kicked him out. He waits for the call so he can swoop in and be Johnny's rescuer. Maybe then Johnny will see how much he loves him. But Johnny never calls. Simon would be tearing his hair out with anxiety if it wasn't so close-cropped to his head. What's happened to him? He hasn't lost control of his emotions like this in years. What have you done to him?

Simon drives to Johnny's house. He watches from the curb through your window. Johnny's alone. Good. He has half a mind to walk up to the door when he sees you come around the corner. He watches you two talk. He watches you cry. Crocodile tears, they must be! Poor you, having your perfect life be derailed. Simon was justified. It's only fair that you suffer even a fraction that he has so he can take some of your perfect life for his own.

But then Johnny is holding you. Johnny is kissing you. No, no this isn't right! You should be screaming at him to leave! You should be beating Soap to a pulp so Simon can put him back together! Why won't you let him have this?

He watches Johnny carry you away. He forces himself to drive away before he does something he'll regret. He speeds the whole way home. He turns his apartment upside-down. In the back of his mind he's thankful he lives in a shit part of town where no one calls the cops unless someone is actually dead. No noise complaints as he shatters every mirror.

It's your fault he's losing control. You you would just let him have Johnny, it would all be fine. But you, you selfish bitch, want to keep Johnny all to yourself. Why? Because you've got a ring? Because you made a vow? Well, Simon makes a vow to himself. No matter how long it takes, he will make Johnny his.

#simon ghost riley #simon ghost riley angst #john soap mactavish #soap mactavish #john soap mactavish angst

[deadpresidents]

After President Abraham Lincoln was shot during a performance of Our American Cousin at Ford's Theatre, several doctors who were in the audience and also enjoying the play rushed into the Presidential Box and began attending to the President. It was clear that Lincoln's wounds were almost certainly mortal, but the doctors still attempted to save his life. Originally thinking that the President had been stabbed, they soon found that he had been shot behind the left ear and the bullet -- a 43.75 mm ball which had been fired by John Wilkes Booth's .44 caliber Derringer -- had sliced through Lincoln's brain and lodged behind his eye sockets without exiting the skull. When Lincoln's breathing became more shallow, Dr. Charles Leale used his finger to remove blood clots from the wound, which immediately improved Lincoln's respiration.

The doctors decided to move Lincoln from the theater, but felt that the President's condition was far too weak to risk taking him back to the White House, which was several blocks away. A nearby saloon was considered just as unseemly of a place for the President to spend his last hours and likely die in as a theatre, so Lincoln was carried across the 10th Street to William Petersen's boarding house. When they brought Lincoln into the boarding house, they realized that the 6'4" President was too tall for the bed they found for him, so they laid him diagonally upon it.

It was obvious that Lincoln could not survive his wound, so the attending doctors simply tried to keep him comfortable in his final hours by clearing the blood clots in his skull that caused his breathing to become more labored. Throughout the night, the President never regained consciousness, but witnesses said that he looked peaceful as his life was drawing to a close. The only visible evidence of his mortal wound were the bloody pillows that his head rested on and the raccoon-like bruising around Lincoln's eye sockets due to the orbital bones fractured by Booth's bullet after it passed through his brain. Nine hours after he was shot, Lincoln died in Petersen's Boarding House at the age of 56.

Shortly after the President was pronounced dead, his body was placed in a coffin and transferred back to the White House in a carriage. Just a few hours later, one of the residents of Petersen's Boarding House, Julius Ulke, took a photograph (seen at the beginning of this post) of the room and the bed -- including a pillow soaked with the President's blood -- where Lincoln had died earlier that morning.

The room in Petersen's Boarding House where Abraham Lincoln died, pictured in 2007.

#History #Abraham Lincoln #President Lincoln #Death of Abraham Lincoln #Assassination of Abraham Lincoln #Lincoln Assassination #Presidents #Presidential History #Presidential Assassinations #John Wilkes Booth #Assassins #Assassinations #Political History #Civil War #Civil War History #Petersen's Boarding House #Ford's Theatre #Presidential Deaths #Our American Cousin

[criminalskies]

BLOG NAVIGATION

hi honey, welcome to my blog! I hope you enjoy your time here :D. This blog is dedicated to all things Thomas Gibson, in particular his characters Aaron Hotchner and Greg Montgomery.

So, my name is Rome. I’m 21 and non-binary, I go by they/them pronouns <3!

🌱💌 This is a safe space. Homophobia, transphobia, racism, sexism, hate speech of any kind are not tolerated here. Everyone is welcome just as they are. Please respect that. 💌 🌱

Please note this post contains some NSFW content, minors DNI.

Request Guidelines: I know I have written some fem!reader in the past, but generally please avoid requesting pregnancy/period/non gender neutral subjects from me. I know it's a weird line for me to draw, but I could suggest probably ten writers who could do a 10x better job writing these topics. I prefer writing Gender Neutral, so I like to keep things this way wherever possible.

I currently also have quite the pile of requests, so while my requests are open, please note it may take me quite some time to get to yours. (I work oldest > newest with the occasional non-requested fic here and there)

Without further ado, please enjoy my works! :D

Fics:

Safety Net: You spend the night reflecting on a beautiful love you shared with Aaron Hotchner, more accurately, you spend the night reflecting on the last two months of heartache without him. It will take one unexpected visitor to bring the two of you to face the reality you’ve found yourselves in.

Looking Out For You: Hotch seems to be babying you on the chase for an unsub, but you quickly realise, he knows what he's doing. also hotch looks hot driving.

In Your Orbit:

part one. Hotch doesn’t understand why the newest member of the team is so dedicated to spending all their time with him. He finally asks and he’s overjoyed with the answer. 

part two. Normal Criminal Minds Case type content, hostage situation, use of guns, an accident involving a knife, Unsub talks about suicide and thoughts of self-harm, please DNI if this is at all triggering for you!!!! ⚠️⚠️

Drunk! Aaron - aaron gets wild on a team bonding night and tries very hard not to let reader undress him because he's taken... by reader. (very drunk hotch being a cutiepie)

Sweet Creature: Aaron has never known exactly where his 'home' was, until he met you.

Walk Me Home: Inspired by the p!nk song, Aaron is having a hard time processing the last case, reader is there to comfort him.

Reprieve: Hotch x Autistic!Reader. Reader is having a very hard day at the BAU and Aaron is able to help.

Sleepless In Seattle: part one. part two. part three.

To Catch A Profiler - A Parent Trap Story. - This is a part one of an incomplete series based on the Parent Trap movies. This sets the scene for when your little girls find one another later in life &lt;3

A Bookstore type of Love. - This was an anon request for brother!spencer reid and boyfriend!aaron to take reader to the bookstore and geek out on new book smell, harry potter and the high school musical/john denver soundtrack on the way. Hotch thinks about how desperately he wants to marry reader.

When the spark lit the fuse - Hotch has been in love before, but he's never been so in sync with someone, bodies moving in harmony like his does with your own. Looking back on how your relationship began, Hotch reminisces on how he himself has changed for the better. because of you.

Meet my big, crazy family: Your boyfriend finally meets your big, loud, crazy family. Inspired by my big fat greek wedding movies &lt;3

This Isn't Me: Hotch comforts reader through their period as they go through some serious dysphoria, having not come out as nonbinary yet &lt;/3.

Thoughts/Blurbs:

Across the Multiverse: Haley shows hotch all the universes in which he is happy, and he just so happens to be with you in every one of them.

Fratboy!Hotch: In high school, rumours and dishonesty pushed you and your childhood-best-friend-turned-love of-your-life Aaron hotchner apart. Now, the two of you have showed up at the same college party. Can he make it up to you?

WW2 Hotch:

I will add many many more to these lists as I progress, writing more in the future <3

Sign up for my taglists here:

#welcome my babies #criminalskies masterlist #criminalskies blog navigation #navigation #masterlist

[simpingcowboy]

Circles

Pairing: Frankie Morales x GN!Reader, established relationship, no use of Y/N

Word Count: 900+

Warnings: description of mental health episode, disassociation, allusion to selective mutism, allusions to death (?)

Summary: Your boyfriend Frankie helps you manage a mental health crisis (happy ending I pinky promise)

A/N: Hi! This is alot more experimental and poetic than most of my work here, but I hope you enjoy! Inspiration taken from John Donne's poem A Valediction: Forbidden Mourning of which I've written a short explanation of the borrowed imagery here :) Can be read without reading the poem! All you need to know is that this is referring to a drawing compass not a directional compass. As always I tried to be mindful of warnings but please let me know if I missed anything!!! Thank you <3

Twin Compass

"Where are you Baby?" Frankie called to you.

"Everywhere." Burdened with all the terrors of the past. Under the crushing pressure of the future. Pinned to the present like a pinned butterfly, slowly letting life leave its body. You couldn't lie if you tried. Everywhere. You were everywhere.

"Can I be everywhere with you?" He asked, slowly breaching your space. Careful not to make any quick movements.

You manage to lift your head from the pillow. Barely peeking up at Frankie, through your tear stained eyes. Everything ached. It felt as if your heart itself weighed too much. Leaving you helpless and alone on your bed, head tucked into a pillow, knees curled into you.

"Baby…" you cried for him, beckoning him near you.

He continues to move slowly, not wanting to startle you. "I'm here. I'm right here." Frankie sits at the head of the bed.

Instinctively, you move to put your head in his lap. The rough fabric of his jeans rubs abrasively against your cheek. Frankie lets his hand travel to your back, rubbing up and down your spine with each rigid intake of air you take.

"In and out. Just keep breathing." He reminds you.

"Frankie-" you choke out.

"Shh it's okay Baby. I know." And he does. For he's been here many times before.

'A compass' you once said. 'We're like a compass.'

The Fixed Foot

Frankie would stay as long as you needed. He'd feed you. Wash you. Tend to you. Care for you in whatever way you need. He would be here. Or there. Or wherever it was you needed him the most.

It was ritualistic, the ways in which he watched over you. Your breathing. How much you ate. How much you drank. Everything was dutifully monitored by Frankie. He could not always ease the suffering of your mind, but the body you inhabited he could care for until you returned.

You knew how he felt. Lowly. Helpless to stop your aimless wander. An undercurrent of anxiety cautioned his every move. During the worst of it, he'd wonder if you'd ever come back. In the quiet moments, you'd hear him plead to the empty air that you'd return. And you would. As you had so fatefully before. As you knew you always would.

"Frankie?" You called to him, still in that far off spot in your mind.

He tilts his attention back to your face, your eyes still heavy with tears, "Yeah, Honey?"

"You…don't have to-" You whimper meekly.

Frankie cut you off with a smile with a solemn nod. "I know." He responds, "I know."

No matter where you were, Frankie would follow. Though right now he knew you were far far away, he still hearkened after you. Leaning into the darkness with you. He believed it his duty to remain firm for you. Frankie would wait. A million days he'd wait. You would return and when you did, you'd need a safe place to land. Need a home to return to after your treacherous journey.

'You make no show to move'

The Traveling Leg

Even in the vase emptiness, Frankie remained. A lingering figure out of the corner of your agony. The one you circled and circled. Orbiting his existence. Entrusting him to bring you back to where you'd begun. Your agony. Your love. Your joys. Your sorrows. You offered it all to him. Each time, against all odds, he stayed. With no ulterior motives than loving you, he stayed firm.

Still- you both were powerless to stop your aimless wander. So, you'd cycle. Sometimes minutes, often hours, occasionally days. Your mind being dragged through a million days already lived, weighed with the concern for the next million you'd be expected to have. Trudging from one state of existence to the next. Everything felt a blur, emotions only half-felt. Your body suspended in an alternative reality all together.

Frankie's would hum, a fact you usually found endearing now merely reduced to a meaningless buzz void of any discernable pattern. In the far recesses of your mind, you did know the song. A part of you can recall. Subconsciously, you hum along with him. Between sobs and desperate murmurs, you hum. And Frankie knows, your love's not endured a breach- but an expansion.

And then you'd hear it. That call. Time to come home.

'When I obliquely run'

The Circle

Slowly you'd feel it. The circle, nearly complete. A hunger. A pain. An ache. The need to stretch. A desire to go outside. And tea. You always wanted tea first.

"F-Frankie?" You mumbled, readjusting to using your voice again. "Tea?" You ask in a hushed voice, eyes much clearer than they'd been before.

Frankie perks up at your request, relief settling into his old bones. "We can get tea. Come on, Baby. Let's get you some tea." He'd say, moving you both steadily into the kitchen.

Together you sat. Drinking tea. Stretching. Frankie takes a tissue to clear your face of the remaining tears. His big brown eyes meet yours. And he's so grateful. To have you. To see you for who you were, and not all the things you believed yourself to be. But his praise would have to wait another day.

"Where are you, Baby?"

"Here. I'm right here, Frankie." You nuzzle your head into his neck. The scruff of his beard tickles your cheek.

"And I'm right here with you." He said, a subtle smile steadily growing across his face.

'Your firmness makes my circle just

And makes me end where I've begun'

#Am writes #frankie morales #frankie morales x you #frankie morales fanfiction #frankie morales fanfic #frankie 'catfish' morales

[adelaidedrubman]

wip freakend

ah gosh this is embarrassing been tagged over the past week by @blissfulalchemist @marivenah @paganminiskirt @scungilliwoman @vasiktomis @aceghosts and i’m sorry i’m not looking back further than a week <3 but thanks to everyone who tagged me ages ago as well. fresh tags out to all of the above and also @henbased @redhearths @shallow-gravy @johnnycranes @preachercuster @hoesephseed @florbelles @gamer-purgatory @chyrstis if you feel like sharing

had myself a little writing break following brain zap from some health issues but slowly easing back in with some low pressure prompts and aus and have stuff to share!! below cut

a little bit from the baptist!jessie role reversal au, john stares creepily for 300+ words what’s new.

And even if he hadn’t already done his homework on the woman, it would have been easy to discern which of the worshippers gathering around the riverbank was the Baptist herself from a glance at the crowd alone. She was the undeniable center of the group, its members orbiting around her, hanging on every word falling from plush rosy lips, even as she stood woven into the crowd without pretense, as if just another one of the flock. 

For she was impeccably styled to look unpretentious as well, as if the obvious grace and lofty status she carried herself with was incidental, unbeknownst to her. Her only bit of outright glitz was the rhinestone inlays pressed into the collar of her crisp black button down, and even those were in the shape of the Eden’s Gate insignia, as if the flashiness was simply to draw attention to the cause and nothing more. In the same fashion, the stiff professional blazer of the kind she wore in the billboards dotting the highways was casually removed from her back to be tied around her waist, as if she was literally casting off the marker of formality amongst her own family. An image topped off with sleeves unbuttoned and rolled up to her elbows (an almost cliché posturing of ‘getting down to work’) and sunglasses set atop her head to crown ginger mane (they were still designer, she couldn’t fool him). 

 And as he stepped close enough to really take in detail, he noted a bit more fancifully that her hair looked as if it really was spun from copper, that sleek metallic shine of delicate threads fine and soft but firmly shaped into place, as if composed of strong but malleable wires meticulously twisted to form the loose waves she wore. 

John smiled. It was exactly the type of ‘impressive, but approachable’ image he would have crafted for himself back in the day, when he was a different person.  She was certainly something.

aaaand zellah and silco manage to get a little more done with roughly the same word count for a prompt

“How unfortunate,” he drolled, strolling past the entryway with hands behind him laced together at the small of his back, leisurely steps that gave him more than enough time to pour eyes lazily along the length of the room, landing on an order book she abruptly flipped shut before finally trailing up slowly in response to meet hers with brows raised. “The one fear you expressed to me about getting involved in my business, come to pass while you tried so desperately to stay away.” 

“If only someone could have warned me of such consequences,” she deadpanned with matching dryness, drumming fingers against the binding of the book. “Or threatened.” 

“Hindsight,” he agreed, with a slow circular nod that turned his gaze toward the doorway to the workshop, making his planned pathway clear. 

He gave a small hum under his breath as he straightened his spine in the direction his head turned, following its path with the resuming of slow, measured steps. 

Zellah gave chase — slowly, of course, unperturbed — circling around the counter to trail behind him, grateful for the few inches of height she had on him as long legs carried her to catch up without betraying any haste. 

Until she could finally close the distance, reaching forward to push past the stupid starched collar to grab him firmly by the back of the neck, pressing fingers against the thin, wrinkled skin there to hold him in place. 

“You’re not going in there,” she announced matter-of-factly, pulling him back gently with her grip, like a mother cat holding and moving its kitten by the scruff of the neck. 

“Excuse me?” he asked, same tone of bemused disinterest, trailing eyes to the corner to fix on her again as she stepped to his side, nearly even with him. 

“I said,” she began, resolutely, “you’re not going in there,” she repeated, slower this time. “The lackeys in your pocket have the warrant, not you.” 

#one day i'll learn to write a relationship dynamic that isn't '5D chess and dumb posturing' but today is not that day #weird to be writing characters that are comparatively understated and don't have to EMPHASIZE everything in CONSTANT ITALICS tho

[laikuh]

Deanjohn prompt: after their first time, how do they deal?

Dean can't look at the bed after. Can barely look at John, except he has to, since they all live in each others' pocket. Which is why he isn't surprised when the first thing John does the morning after is leave while Dean's in the shower, washing off his father's cu--no. He won't let himself think about it.

Sam doesn't get why Dean won't take John's room like he's been doing since they've been holed up in this shitty one-room rental unit whenever John’s gone, choosing instead to stay in the tiny twin pull-out bed they've been sharing.

"Dude, give me some room. Take Dad's room."

"No," Dean grits out. "It reeks like cigarette smoke."

It's a weak excuse; the room does smell, but Dean smokes enough cigarettes to not really be all that bothered about it.

Sam frowns, wheels turning. He opens and closes his mouth. Opens again. "Did something happen?"

Dean looks at him, and then away. He punches the lumpy pillow. "No."

Sam rolls his eyes. "Dean."

Dean settles down under the covers. "Sam."

"Come on, Dean," Sam says softly. "You can tell me."

"Tell you what, Sam?" Dean snaps. "What would I tell you happened in Dad's bedroom?"

They stare at each other, Dean holding his breath, waiting to see if Sam will go there. If he'll say it.

All Sam does is worry at his bottom lip. "Are you...okay?"

Dean scoffs, tension broken. "I'm not a fucking girl, Sam."

Sam pulls a bitch face. "Fuck off, Dean."

“Only if you’ll shut up.”

An uneasy silence follows.

“I’ve got your back, Dean,” Sam says eventually, quietly, voice barely above a whisper.

Dean swallows. “I know, Sammy.”

When John gets back two weeks later, he’s only in the rental long enough to bark the order that Dean and Sam pack up the Impala and be ready to leave in ten minutes. Dean takes a breath and bites his tongue, then does what his father says.

It’s weird in the car. Sam takes his usual place in the back, which leaves Dean to take shotgun. He sits uncomfortably besides John and tries not to fidget. Not to squirm. Not to draw attention to himself, or his body. He looks out the open window and hums the songs on the radio under his breath to distract himself from the fact of his father beside him. To distract from the knowledge of what John’s skin feels like under Dean’s fingers. What the girth of him feels like inside of Dean. How his mouth tastes. How his cock tastes. What he looks like when he comes.

The attempts at distraction only work for so long, which isn’t very long at all. It’s only an hour into the drive that Dean finds his eyes drifting to his father, glances sneaking sideways as John blows through yet another nondescript town. John is beautiful as he drives, much as Dean doesn’t want to think those kind of thoughts. Can’t hardly help it when John is sitting with one hand on the wheel and one out the window, eyes focused, lips slightly parted. He’s arresting, in his own way, and Dean knows he’s going to be caught up in his father’s orbit for as long as he lives.

He watches John work his carton of cigarettes out of his pocket, fingers fumbling for the Zippo.

“I’ve got it,” Dean says, reaching over for the pack, his own lighter already in hand.

John grunts, handing the cigarettes over, and Dean lets their fingers touch as they make the exchange. John holds Dean’s gaze for a moment before turning to refocus on the road, and Dean feels the tension finally begin to dissipate, if only a little. He pulls two cigarettes out of the carton and lights them both before handing one to John.

“Thanks,” his father says gruffly.

“Sure,” Dean mumbles, looking away as John’s lips wrap around the filter. Like they wrap--no.

Two days later things are about as back to normal as Dean thinks they’re going to get. He and John can exist in the same space again without too much awkwardness. The car doesn’t feel like an endless purgatory of discomfort. The dark doesn’t make him think only of the things he and John got up to in it just a few weeks prior.

Dean’s not sure there’s too much more he can ask for.

#deanjohn #daddycest #my fic #i know these are so so so short and end abruptly #im just really trying to write for the fun of it and stop when it feels semi-reasonable so i can actually post it #thanks for bearing with me #this was really interesting to write anon! #im really glad for the opportunity <3 #tumblr fic

[maxwell-grant]

What are your thoughts on Jekyll/Hyde and his archetype of the human periodically changing into a monster ?

Jekyll & Hyde was the 2nd horror story I read following Frankenstein, I got it off the same library and it always stuck very strongly with me even before I got into horror in general. I even dressed up as Jekyll/Hyde as a kid for a school fair by shredding a lab coat on one side and asking my sister to make-up claw gashes on my exposed arm and paint half of my face, although in hindsight I think I ended up looking more like Doctor Two-Face than Jekyll/Hyde, but I was 12 and didn't have any Victorian clothing to use so I had to make do. The first film project I tried doing at film school was intended to be a modern take on Jekyll & Hyde, and I didn't get much farther than a couple of discarded scripts

Much like Frankenstein, Mr Hyde as a character and a story is something that's kind of baked into everything I do artistically. And it's not just me, as even in pop culture itself, none of us can escape Mr Hyde. I would go so far as to argue Mr Hyde may be the single most significant character created by victorian fiction, if only by the sheer impact and legacy the character's had.

(Fan-art by guilhermefranco)

Part of what makes Mr Hyde such a powerful and lasting icon of pop culture is that the very premise of the book invites a personal reading that's gonna vary from person to person. Because everyone's familiar with the basic twist of the story, that it's a conflict of duality, of the good and evil sides, but everyone has a more personal idea of what those entail. Some people make the story more about class. A lot of readings laser-focus on sex and lust as the driving force, and there's also a lot of readings of Mr Hyde that tackle it to explore a more gendered perspective, and so forth.

I don't particularly take much notice of the Jekyll & Hyde adaptations partially because the novel's premise and themes have become baked so throughly into pop culture and explored in so many different and interesting ways, that I'm not particularly starving for good Jekyll & Hyde adaptations the way I am for Dracula and Frankenstein. The Fredric March film in particular is one that orbits my head less because of the film itself (although I do recommend it), but because of one specific scene, and that's when Jekyll first transforms into Hyde on screen.

Out of all the things they could have shown him doing right that second, they instead took the time to show him enjoying the rain.

Just Hyde taking off his hat and letting it all cascade on his face with this sheer enthusiasm like he's never been to the rain before, never enjoyed it before, and now that he's free from being Jekyll, he gets to enjoy life like he never has before. It's such an oddly humanizing moment to put amidst a horror movie, in the scene where you're ostensibly introducing the monster to the audience, and it makes such a stark contrast to the rest of the film where Hyde is completely irredeemable, but I think it's that contrast that makes the film's take on Hyde work so well even with it's diverging from the source material, even if I don't particularly like in general interpretations of Hyde that are focused on a sexual aspect.

Because one, it understands that Jekyll was fundamentally a self-serving coward and not a paragon of goodness, and two, it also understands one of the things that makes Hyde scary: He wants what all of us want, to live and be happy. He's happy when he leaves the lab and dances around in the rain like a giddy child, he's happy when he goes to places Jekyll couldn't dream of showing up, he's happy as a showgirl-abusing sexual predator. Hyde is all wants, all the time, and there's not that much difference between his wants, his domineering possessiveness, and the likes exhibited by Muriel's father and Jekyll's own within the very same film, which also works to emphasize one of the other ideas of the original story, that Edward Hyde doesn't come from nowhere. That no monster is closer to humanity than Mr Hyde, because he is us. He is the thing that Jekyll refused to take responsability for until it was too late.

(Art by LorenzoMastroianni)

While many of the ideas that defined Mr Hyde had already been explored in pop culture beforehand, Hyde popularized and redefined many of them in particular by modernizing the idea. He was the werewolf, the doppelganger, The Player On The Other Side, except he came from within. He was not transformed by circumstance, he made himself that way, and the elixir merely brought out something already inside his soul. To acknowledge that he's there is to acknowledge that he is you, and to not do that is to either lose to him, or perish. Hyde was there to address both the rot settling in Victorian society as well as grappling concerns over Darwinian heritage, of the realization that man has always had the beast inside of him (it's no accident that Hyde's main method of murder is by clubbing people to death with his cane like a caveman).

I've already argued on my post about Tarzan that the Wild Man archetype, beginning with Enkidu of The Epic of Gilgamesh, is the in-between man and beast, between superhero and monster, and that Mr Hyde is an essential component of the superhero's trajectory, as the creature split in between. That stories about dual personalities, doppelgangers, the duality of the soul, the hero with a day job and an after dark career, you can pinpoint Hyde as a turning point in how all of these solidified gradually in pop culture. And I've argued otherwise that The Punisher, for all that his image and narrative points otherwise, is ultimately just as much of a superhero as the rest of them, even if no one wants to admit it, drawing a parallel between The Punisher and Mr Hyde. And he's far from the only modern character that can invite this kind of parallel.

The idea of a regular person periodically or permanently transforming into, or revealing itself to be, something extraordinary and fantastic and scary, grappling with the divide it causes in their soul, and questions whether it's a new development or merely the truest parts of themselves coming to light at last, and the effects this transformation has for good and bad alike. The idea of a potent, dangerous, unpredictable enemy who ultimately is you, or at least a facet of you and what you can do. That these are bound to destroy each other if not reconciled with or overcome.

You know what are my thoughts on the archetype of "human periodically changing into a monster" are? Look around you and you're gonna see the myriad ways The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde's themes have manifested in the century and a half since the story's release. Why it shouldn't be any surprise whatsoever that Mr Hyde has become such an integral part of pop culture, in it's heroes and monsters alike. Why we can never escape Mr Hyde, just as Jekyll never could.

It is Nixon himself who represents that dark, venal and incurably violent side of the American character that almost every country in the world has learned to fear and despise. Our Barbie-doll president, with his Barbie-doll wife and his boxful of Barbie-doll children is also America's answer to the monstrous Mr. Hyde.

He speaks for the Werewolf in us; the bully, the predatory shyster who turns into something unspeakable, full of claws and bleeding string-warts on nights when the moon comes too close… - Hunter S. Thompson

There is a scene in the movie Pulp Fiction that explains almost every terrible thing happening in the news today. And it's not the scene where Ving Rhames shoots that guy's dick off. It's the part where the hit man played by John Travolta is talking about how somebody vandalized his car, and says this:

"Boy, I wish I could've caught him doing it. I'd have given anything to catch that asshole doing it. It'd been worth him doing it, just so I could've caught him doing it."

That last sentence is something everyone should understand about mankind. After all, the statement is completely illogical -- revenge is supposed to be about righting a wrong. But he wants to be wronged, specifically so he'll have an excuse to get revenge. We all do.

Why else would we love a good revenge movie? We sit in a theater and watch Liam Neeson's daughter get kidnapped. We're not sad about it, because we know he's a badass and he finally has permission to be awesome. Not a single person in that theater was rooting for it to all be an innocent misunderstanding. We wanted Liam to be wronged, because we wanted to see him kick ass. It's why so many people walk around with vigilante fantasies in their heads.

Long, long ago, the people in charge figured out that the easiest and most reliable way to bind a society together was by controlling and channeling our hate addiction. That's the reason why seeing hurricane wreckage on the news makes us mumble "That's sad" and maybe donate a few bucks to the Red Cross hurricane fund, while 9/11 sends us into a decade-long trillion-dollar rage that leaves the Middle East in flames.

The former was caused by wind; the latter was caused by monsters. The former makes us kind of bummed out; the latter gets us high.

It's easy to blame the news media for pumping us full of stories of mass shootings and kidnapped children, but that's stopping one step short of the answer: The media just gives us what we want. And what we want is to think we're beset on all sides by monsters.

The really popular stories will always feature monsters that are as different from us as possible. Think about Star Wars -- what real shithead has ever referred to himself as being on "the dark side"? In Harry Potter and countless fantasy universes, you have wizards working in "black magic" and the "dark arts." Can you imagine a scientist developing some technology for chemical weapons or invasive advertising openly thinking of what he does as "dark science"? Can you imagine a real world leader naming his headquarters "The Death Star" or "Mount Doom"?

Of course not. But we need to believe that evil people know they're evil, or else that would open the door to the fact that we might be evil without knowing it. I mean, sure, maybe we've bought chocolate that was made using child slaves or driven cars that poisoned the air, but we didn't do it to be evil -- we were simply doing whatever we felt like and ignoring the consequences. Not like Hitler and the bankers who ruined the economy and those people who burned the kittens -- they wake up every day intentionally dreaming up new evils to create. It's not like Hitler actually thought he was saving the world.

So no matter how many times you vote to cut food stamps and then use the money to buy a boat, you could still be way worse. You could, after all, be one of those murdering / lazy / ignorant / greedy / oppressive monsters that you know the world is full of, and that only your awesome moral code prevents you from turning into at any moment. And those monsters are out there.

They have to be. Because otherwise, we're the monsters - 5 Reasons Humanity Desperately Wants Monsters To Be Real, by Jason Pargin

(Two-Face sequence comes from the end of Batman Annual #14: Eye of the Beholder)

For good or bad, Hyde has become omnipresent. He's a part of our superheroes, he's a part of our supervillains, he's in our monsters. He lives and prattles in our ears, sometimes we need him to survive, and sometimes we become Hyde even when we don't need to, because our survival instincts or base cruelties or desperation brings out the worst in us. Sometimes we can beat him, and sometimes he's not that bad. Sometimes we do need to appease him and listen to what he says, about us and the world around us. And sometimes we need to do so specifically to prove him wrong and beat him again.

But he never, ever goes away, as he so accurately declares in the musical

Do you really think That I would ever let you go...

Do you think I'd ever set you free?

If you do, I'm sad to say It simply isn't so

You will never get away FROM MEEEEEE

(Art by Akreon on Artstation)

#tw: injury #tw: blood #tw: disfigurement #replies tag #dr jekyll and mr hyde #the strange case of dr jekyll and mr hyde #robert louis stevenson #two-face #batman #monster tag #universal monsters #horror tag

[firstdegreefangirl]

56 and 60 from the most recent prompt list said by Tim to Lucy please?

What a way to break back into actual writing, not the mad-dash outline I’ve been plodding my way through. Thanks for the request, this was so much fun! Also, hey look! Fluff!

--

Tim has no idea how long he’s been sitting in roll call, but it feels like forever. He’d never be able to repeat a word of what Sergeant Grey is saying, though, because truth be told, he’s been distracted since the moment he sat down next to Harper.  

Lucy is sitting in front of him, across the aisle where she always is in the mornings. Or, rather, Lucy is slumped in front of him, shoulders drawn in and spine arched so far forward that she can’t be comfortable.

Even her ponytail looks less perky than usual.

And Tim has no idea why.

He’d dropped her off last night, after what he had thought was a pretty good date. When he pulled up out front, she’d leaned across the center of his truck and kissed him, whispered against his mouth that she’d invite him up, but Jackson is home and they haven’t told anyone they’re dating yet. She’d squeezed his hand before she slid out of the truck, and texted him good night not long after he got home.  

But sometime between now and then, something had obviously happened. Even when she’s dead-on-her-feet exhausted, Lucy looks more cheerful than she does right now. But whatever it is can’t have been serious enough for her to call out, or she wouldn’t be here. And if things were that bad, surely she’d have texted or called Tim.

Right?

Still, he can’t stop watching her out the corner of his eye, looking for any indication that she’s coming around on the day. She’s not leaning over to chat with Jackson or John, hardly writing anything down in her notebook - which means she’s definitely not doodling, not nodding along like she normally does as Grey recaps the overnight calls and suggests follow up points for today’s officers.  

The morning briefing is winding down, he can tell, and before long, Grey is reminding everyone to stay safe and the officers around Tim start migrating toward the armory and the garage.

Lucy stands up too, a moment after everyone else, but hesitates before she takes a step. She looks around, like she’s trying to orient herself, then hides a yawn in the side of her fist.  

The meeting room is almost empty now, so Tim takes the risk that he might look like a training officer who cares about his rookie after her training ends and strides across the room.

“Hey,” he says quietly, stopping just close enough that he can rest his hand on Lucy’s shoulder without drawing too much attention. “You OK?”  

“Hmm?” Lucy doesn’t startle, but looks up at him. Confusion and surprise are written across her face. “Yeah, fine.”  

“Nope,” Tim shakes his head. “I know you better than that, Boot. If you were really ‘fine,’ you’d say you were ‘great’ or ‘incredible’ or ‘amazing.’ All of which, by the way, are true. But what’s going on?” Lucy doesn’t say anything, so Tim tries again. “C’mon, tell me what’s wrong.”  

Lucy sighs, swaying slightly closer to Tim, like she’s being drawn into his orbit.  

“I don’t know,” She crosses her arms, toying with the edge of her shirtsleeve. Tim can tell she’s not done explaining yet, gives her a moment to gather her thoughts without his interruption. “It was just a bad morning, I think.

“My phone didn’t go off, so the alarm clock woke me up, 10 minutes late. Then there wasn’t enough hot water for my shower, so I had to rinse my hair after it went all icy. And I poured my coffee, but there wasn’t enough of the good creamer for my entire cup. I found some crappy freebie single to make it drinkable, but it wasn’t as good, and I was already running late. I couldn’t find matching socks, my keys got lost in the couch cushions, it was just …” she trails off and sighs again. “It’s been a really long day, and it’s not even 9 a.m.”

Lucy shifts her footing, pitches herself sideways until her shoulder is resting against the front of Tim’s uniform. From most angles, it’d be hard to tell exactly how close they’re standing, and there are only a couple officers still lingering, so Tim lets her lean for a moment, brings his own hand up to rest on her waist, right above her duty belt.  

“I’m sorry,” he says into the mere inches of space between them. It’s not good enough, not even close to everything he wants to say. But it’s the closest he can come at work, far more IA-appropriate than come over and use my shower. I’ll wake you up, and make your coffee, and find your socks, and drive us both to work so your keys won’t matter.

When Lucy stands upright again, she trails behind Tim to the armory, signs for her duty bag and nods when Officer Ramirez tells her Jackson already checked out their shop keys for the day. She follows him again after, doesn’t seem to notice that he’s not walking toward the garage. He turns into the copy room, tiny and windowless, far enough from the bullpen that they’re more likely to escape notice, and Lucy almost walks into him before she realizes he’s stopped.

“Tim?” Lucy sidesteps until she’s facing him, and he nudges his foot forward to knock their toes together.

“You look like you could use a hug,” he glances around the room. “I thought this might be better than calling it out in front of our coworkers, but you look like you could use a hug.”

He opens his arms and Lucy’s bag drops to the floor with a solid thump before she drops herself into his chest. Tim’s arms find purchase around her waist, and even through his vest he can feel the way her fingers are twisting into the back of his shirt.  

They won’t have long here, he knows. They can only make excuses for so long, say there was a line for the bathroom or they had to wait around for car keys. But with every passing second, he can feel the tension melting out of Lucy’s shoulders and vows to hold her for just a moment longer.  

And he makes a note in the back of his mind to talk to her when she’s a little less stressed, tell her everything that’s running through his mind right now.  

Maybe next time, he won’t have to hide to hug her.

#katie writes #kw21 #katie answers #the rookie #chenford #tim bradford x lucy chen #lucy chen x tim bradford #lucy chen #tim bradford #prompt fill #anon love #anonymous

[tsarisfanfiction]

Colour symbol prompts

Fluff: black: protection

John protecting Scott

The Role of Protector

Fandom: Thunderbirds Rating: Teen Genre: Angst/Hurt/Comfort Characters: John, Scott

Uh, so I kinda maybe missed the "fluff" part of the prompt. Whoops. Ah well - this prompt intrigued me a lot so who knows, I might write some more protector!John at a later date - hell knows I love it when Scott's being protected by little brothers for once, and there's a large scope for that out there (I already have a second idea for John, which might actually tend more towards fluff than this one - not that that's particularly hard...)

4am seems to have snuck up on me without warning, so while I have proof read this I can't guarantee it was a perfect proof read... But some protective!John (and a nice side dish of Scott!whump as well).

Colour Symbol Prompts

It wasn’t often that John found himself in this position. Spending most of the year on Thunderbird Five had something to do with that, of course, but it was hardly the only factor at play. The fact that the only brother with him at the moment was Scott was another – a younger brother, with the possible exception of Gordon, was somewhat more likely to put John in his current position, but Scott was a different matter entirely.

As big brother and former military with the skills to match, even if he didn’t like to show them, Scott was the protector of the family. It was a role he hoarded viciously, because if it had fallen to one of the others then, to Scott’s mind, he’d failed.

John would disagree. Their big brother was still only human himself, and John had a long list of grievances attached to the way he seemed unable to step back and recharge even for a moment. There were times, though, where the choice was stripped from Scott, leaving him vulnerable and leaving the role of protector to settle elsewhere temporarily.

It was normally Gordon, for all that he was fourth out of five. Military steel skipped over Virgil – too soft, Gordon had confided in him before, although John knew it wasn’t a complaint, or sleight against the brother between them at all. Being soft against a world determined to tear itself and everyone inside it apart on a regular basis took its own strength, and Gordon knew that better than most. The steel skirted around John himself, too, although he liked to think he still had sharp edges when he needed them – the fact that he was rarely there in person was just another reason for the role to pass him over. None of them were ready to let the steel go near Alan.

Gordon wasn’t there, off on the other side of the world with Virgil rescuing yet another fishing trawler in distress. Alan was stuck in the world of homework, leaving John alone with his big brother.

His barely-conscious big brother, slumped against a cave wall where John had deposited him despite Scott’s best efforts to the contrary. Blood was blotching the bandages hastily applied to his shoulder; those would need changing soon, but John had other priorities to worry about first. International Rescue didn’t carry weapons, but both Scott and Gordon had proved that with enough creativity most of their equipment could be utilised as such. Given the situation, John had taken a leaf out of their book – and the grapple gun from Scott’s hip, which he was currently aiming with less surety than he’d like at the narrow entrance to the cavern they were hiding in.

The distress call had been a set-up. John was beyond relieved that he’d been nudged out on the rescue by Scott, who’d declared that he needed the practice with Earth-rescues and it was just a simple one so it would be good to get his eye back in. Their assailants had been prepared for Scott.

They had not been prepared for John.

Although, to be fair, John had also not been prepared to see Scott collapse a little way ahead of him, nor for the gunshot that had immediately preceded that. He wasn’t entirely sure how he’d got both himself and Scott out of there without either of them taking any more bullets, but if pressed his guess would be that they’d been too surprised that Scott wasn’t alone to shoot immediately.

John had dragged his brother back, away from the assailants, and run through the cavern system as best he could with Scott injured and unco-operative to the sounds of angry shouts and pursuit. EOS had chirped in his ear that unauthorised personnel were attempting to gain access to Thunderbird One – she’d locked down the Thunderbird before anyone successfully got inside, but that had still meant that their only way out was blocked.

Instead, it was a waiting game – although it felt like a particularly dangerous form of hide and seek, if he was honest. He’d got in contact with the GDF via EOS, and they’d promised they were on their way. He just had to keep both Scott and himself safe until they did.

The small cave with its narrow entrance had been a find by EOS. Scott, of course, had tried to make him hide in there while he claimed he’d draw them away, but while that had made some sense in the form of the trail of blood leading right to them, it also made absolutely no sense for the same reason. John’s response had been to manhandle his unsteady and rapidly paling big brother into the cave and push him to sit down before he fell down.

His brother had not been best pleased, but John had been far more worried about the bullet and blood loss than keeping Scott happy. Still was, because despite the painkiller and bandaging, Scott was slipping further and further towards unconsciousness. John estimated he had two more minutes, at best, before Scott passed out entirely.

The GDF were more than two minutes out. It was touch and go if the blood trail would lead their assailants to their current location within two minutes. John tightened his grip on the borrowed grapple gun and swallowed.

He didn’t know if it was Scott in particular they were after, or if they’d just been planning to attack the first IR operative they saw. The lack of reliable data rankled; John despised being blind. EOS was digging, but so far nothing of note had come out of that.

But at the end of the day, what they wanted didn’t matter. They’d hurt Scott, they were hunting both of them, Thunderbird One was under assault, and John wasn’t normally the one with the role of protector on his shoulders but today he was, and he was going to do it justice.

They wouldn’t hurt Scott again. It didn’t matter if John had to use the grapple gun in ways it was not supposed to be used, or if he had to use his own body as a shield. He’d keep Scott safe.

The sound of something soft hitting the floor, which had to be Scott passing out because there was nothing else to fall, came at the same time as the voices. Angry voices, clearly following the blood trail, and John tensed.

All his instincts as a rescue operative were screaming for him to hurry to Scott’s side and check his condition. Common sense kept him where he was. Scott was around a craggy corner from the narrow entrance, impossible to see from the main cavern. As long as John didn’t move, there was no way they could get to Scott without going through him.

He kept his breathing low and even, counting his breaths silently to keep them under control. John wasn’t a fighter. Give him a computer and he’d destroy his target before they even realised what was happening, but in person was another matter entirely. He’d never even been able to scare off bullies at school, let alone armed assailants when all he had was the rescue gear in his and Scott’s uniforms.

There were many ways to win a war. Scott or Gordon would tackle the problem head on, offence the best form of defence, but they were trained for that. John wasn’t. John just had stories, some pranking experience, and his brain.

He didn’t need to beat their assailants. He just had to hold them off until the GDF arrived.

The voices were getting closer. Closer, closer, closer. John’s breathing hitched despite his best efforts to the contrary. Timing would be key. If he was even slightly out, then he’d have to fight for real, and while he’d stand his ground, he had no delusions about being able to win. He was too soon down from orbit for that, for starters.

They were close enough now for him to make out the words. Any chance that they had no idea where he and Scott were was destroyed by their discussions about the blood trail they were following. A blood trail that led straight to Scott.

John swallowed again. Sweat beaded on his brow, but he didn’t dare raise an arm to wipe it away. Both hands were locked around the grapple gun, still aiming through the narrow entrance. He couldn’t mess this up. Scott was – unconsciously, unwillingly – depending on him.

He could see them now. They hadn’t spotted him, too intent on the blood trail across the stone floor, but that could change at any moment. Three people, and he knew there were more but hopefully the others weren’t on hunting duty. It wasn’t ideal, but it was the best chance John was going to get.

It was the only chance he was going to get.

He pulled the trigger.

It was Scott he had to thank for the extensive knot knowledge, his big brother coaching him through the Rescue Scouts badges even when he just wanted to get the stargazing ones and leave it at that. Grapple cables weren’t rope, but they were strong and sturdy yet still malleable enough to loop over and around as required until he’d managed a makeshift net. Cable ties from his own baldric, meant for repairs in space, had been deployed as reinforcements.

Lay the net just so, set up large chunks of rocks to fall when hit in the sweet spot, and a rudimentary pulley system from yet another grapple cable – Scott’s baldric had been scavenged bare of useful items, including the trauma kit that was trying and failing to keep the blood in his body – and he had a way to contain the first wave of approaching assailants.

Hopefully.

John watched with bated breath as it all snapped together, cable-net wrapping around the assailants and hoisting them dramatically into the air, counter-balanced by the weight of as many rocks as he’d been able to shift in the short timespan he’d had to set up the trap. There was furious yelling.

A gunshot sounded.

More furious yelling.

The trap held.

How long it would hold for, John didn’t know, but he did know that he’d hear it if they escaped, so with a shaky exhale he backed away from the narrow entrance, clipping the now-empty grapple gun to his own baldric, and hurried to Scott’s side.

The bandages needed changing. John rolled him onto his side, putting him into the recovery position to keep him stable, and dug out fresh supplies. Scott didn’t stir as he stripped away the old, bloodstained, linen and replaced it with fresh strips. A check of his pulse told John what he already knew – Scott was still alive, but had lost far too much blood.

If John had managed to capture all of the assailants, his plan had been to get Scott back to Thunderbird One and head straight for the nearest hospital. Unfortunately, that had not been the case, so he was forced to accept Plan B – wait for the GDF to show up and hope they arrived before any other ill-wishers.

John had only had enough equipment for a single trap.

#thunderbirds are go #thunderbirds are go fanfiction #tsari writes fanfiction #john tracy #scott tracy #drabbles #thunderwhump #janetm74 #the roles of protector

[shmegmilton]

Can you explain how Aaron and Alexander stopped being friends and started fighting?

They were never really ‘friends.’ I assume you got that idea from the play, but I have no idea why the play tried to push that narrative. Civil? Sure, but that was necessary. New York was less than 50,000 people at the time, and they were both accomplished lawyers & statesmen who had to work and interact with each other on a daily basis. Politics is politics, look at how people are acting right now during our election. 

As for your question, it’s a long line of policy & personal disagreements, mostly. They were on opposite sides of the aisle on pretty much everything. Lots of small things, but a lot of big, BIG things.

     Burr was (ironically) kind of a pacifist; he kept mostly to himself, didn’t really speak much publicly & didn’t necessarily go out of his way to confront people unless he’s been pushed long enough (everyone ‘snaps’ at some point, y’know?)

But that’s why the ‘Burr is an evil mastermind’ myth is so pervasive today. Burr just… didn’t bother defending himself, or correcting anything, because he (mistakingly) had faith in the inherent goodness of people that someday people would see him for his true character. So for that reason, we don’t really have a good timeline from Burr’s perspective as to how he felt about Hamilton—but BOY howdy did Hamilton never shut up about Burr.

----

Trespass & Confiscation Acts  (1782ish)

     During the Revolution, the British confiscated the property of patriots that fled the city. New York did the same thing, & for a while it was this game of: ‘Oh, you’re gonna take my stuff? **draws a line in the dirt** Well, everything behind this line is mine now.” It was all very bad, and after the way Tories & Loyalists faced a lot of honestly very fucked up discrimination & forfeiture of their rights. Hamilton (like most Federalists) was pro-British, so he represented a lot of these people in court. I’m sure it wasn’t purely out of the goodness of his heart--most of his clients were loaded--but the sentiment is there. On the other hand, there are multiple records of Burr buying up property around this time, most likely confiscated Tory property, which he would usually flip or give away to people that he knew, so he was taking full advantage of this. Burr also, most likely, went head-to-head with Hamilton on a few of these cases, because Burr tended to work with the ‘common folk.’

French Revolution (1789ish to 1799ish) & Proclamation of Neutrality (1793)

     Burr (like most Democratic-Republicans) was pro-French, so much so that he took in French refugees fleeing the Revolution into his home. He was very sympathetic to the cause.Hamilton was not. He basically saw it the same way that right-wing Conservatives see the Black Lives Matter movement is the best way I can explain it. He also hated it for the amount of immigrants that were now fleeing to the U.S.

Burr Gets Chosen For NY Senate (1791)

     Key word: chosen. As in, he didn’t actually run. That wasn’t how politics worked back then. The Hamilton musical just fucking lied outright about that, let’s be clear. He also never switched parties. Ever. Back then you were nominated by the people who were already in government--usually by one of the powerful families like the Clintons or the Livingstons, or yada yada. So Burr didn’t actually do anything. He didn’t even really want the position either, if I recall. But back then if you were ‘called to serve,’ you were obligated to do it. Hamilton was furious either way because it meant that Burr was replacing his father-in-law, Phillip Schuyler, meaning that he wouldn’t have that extra ear in government that he wanted. Burr also had a lot of views that were considered ‘extreme’ at the time, like getting extra rights for women, immigrants & black people, but I have no idea what Hamilton thought of those individual policies other than he just didn’t like women, immigrants or black people.

1792 & 1796 Presidential Election

Burr wasn’t really that serious about either of these elections, I don’t think (in ’92 he wasn’t that well-known & barely got any support, but it’s worth noting the fact he was nominated to run at all was really impressive. He’s tied with William Jennings Bryan as being one of the youngest people to ever receive an electoral vote, at 36 years old.) In ’96 he faired a little better—he got 30 votes, which is nearly half of what you need to get the ticket nomination, also very impressive.Hamilton was super staunchly opposed to both of these runs, though, and did his typical Hamilton thing of openly campaigning about how the people shouldn’t vote for Burr, yada yada.

Jay Treaty (1794)

     I highly suggest looking up supplemental information on this because it’s a bit complicated, but it was basically a treaty between us and Great Britain to reaffirm that we were going to continue to not mess with France, as well as a couple of other weird hang-ups. It was not popular, at all, especially with the Demo-Republicans. There is a specific instance (that is actually kind of insane) where Hamilton gave a public speech in defense of it, and the Democratic-Republicans in the crowd started pelting him & the other Federalists with rocks. Hamilton got SO mad that immediately challenged a man to a duel, and threatened to fight each of the Democratic-Republicans one-by-one.  

Reynolds Affair (1797)

     Burr had a personal relationship with Maria Reynolds; he was her divorce attorney in 1793/1794, helped her out financially, & successfully petitioned (+paid for) her daughter Susan to attend a boarding school. I believe they also stayed in his him with him during the divorce proceedings, but don’t quote me on that. He never said anything publicly that I could find, but Burr probably had a personal investment in the Reynolds Pamphlet, since it painted Maria in a really damaging light.

Alien & Sedition Acts (1798)

     These were some of the most worst laws ever passed in the history of the country. Like, these were AWFUL. It not only limited immigration, but it limited the freedom of the press and freedom of speech (ESPECIALLY immigrants, my god.)

Burr was right on the front lines helping defend people in court, he actively opposed it & is probably the thing that propelled him into Jefferson’s orbit as a potential Vice President.

John Barker Church Duel (1797)

John Barker Church had accused Burr of taking bribes (which was unfounded & untrue) and they ended up dueling. JBC was the husband of Angelica Schuyler, Hamilton’s sister-in-law.

Neither was injured (though, JBC apparently put a hole in Burr’s coat), but it supposed infuriated Hamilton & his associates so much that they would send out fake letters “from Burr” challenging people to duels.

The Manhattan Company (1799)

    Burr was getting sick of the difficulty he was having getting loans from the Federalist-run banks and decided to do something about it. There had been several seasonal epidemics of yellow fever—caused by mosquitos but, at the time, it was thought to be caused by improperly treated water, miasma (‘bad air’) or (if you asked Hamilton) stinky evil immigrant refuges who were fleeing France and Haiti. Burr saw this and spearheaded a campaign to get a proper water treatment plant, even getting Hamilton to help him. Through some really weird loophole that I don’t quite understand, Burr was somehow allowed to use the ‘surplus capital’ for banking, which essentially turned it into a bank. The actual water treatment portion of the company was plagued with problems due to improper management and things like that.     We’ll never know his exact thought process on this (people normally assume it was malicious trickery because people are biased to hate Burr anyway) & I highly doubt that Burr knew the extent of the issues (he was on the Board of Directors, but so were a dozen others--INCLUDING John Barker Church) so I don’t entirely think it’s his fault, but the fact of the matter is that it most likely exacerbated the existing problems & indirectly led to more people getting sick/dying until they finally fixed the problems.I would say that it’s completely justifiable for Hamilton to be mad at Burr, but, as we established, Hamilton hated both poor people & immigrants (two groups most likely affected by this) so he wasn’t actually mad at him for the reason a… y’know, a normal person would be mad at him. He was mad at him because Burr destroyed the monopoly that Federalists had on banks, making it easier for Democratic-Republicans & others to get loans. He was literally mad at him for making the economy fair.

1800 Election & 1804 NY Governor Election

  These two are self-explanatory, I think, and I’ve already been writing way too long, lol. My hand hurts.

#Aaron Burr #Alexander Hamilton #Hamilton #AmRev #History #American Revolution #Long Post #Anecdotes #THIS TOOK SO LOOOOONG

[gumnut-logic]

Chuckles (Part Two)

Part 1 - 2035 | Part Two - 2036

This is the next chapter of my @tagsecretsanta​ fic for @angelofbenignmalevolence​ There is more to come....lots more (though most of it isn’t written yet). Many thanks to @scribbles97​ and @tsarinatorment​ for the reading and support ::hugs::

Warnings: None other than wee!Tracys :D

I hope you enjoy it :D

-o-o-o-

2036

Christmas in the Tracy household was a big family affair. The house itself was a big one. Big enough to house extended family and the bustle and noise that involved.

Scott loved it. Loved everyone being together, the hugs, the jokes, the fact that Uncle Lee always called him ‘Little Jeff’ and told the best stories about planes and rockets. Aunt Val always brought the best Christmas cookies with various aircraft drawn on them with icing. Grandma Taylor had different coloured hair every year and this year was bright blue and included glitter. Grandpa Taylor invented toys for a living so he was always welcome. Though Virgil tended to hoard his attention and Scott wasn’t really sure why because Virgil pulled apart everything Grandpa Taylor gave him anyway.

But the best part of Christmas this year was that Daddy was home.

Daddy spent a lot of time away. Scott understood why, but that didn’t stop him from missing him. Dad had stories much like Uncle Lee and often they starred in each other’s tales, but there was something about his father that Scott just looked up to even more.

It didn’t hurt that Uncle Lee made a point of placing Scott’s father in the spotlight in all his stories.

Dad was an amazing person. A hero.

Dad was also very tall and strong and always had the answers Scott needed. While Mom looked after him and his two little brothers and he loved her very much, Dad was…Dad.

And Scott wanted more than anything to grow up and be just like him.

It certainly didn’t hurt that his father had the same colour hair and everyone said Scott looked a lot like him. Scott bore those comments proudly and made a point of doing his best to emulate what his father might do in any situation.

Scott was going to grow up, join the Air Force and do his father proud.

A clatter in the hallway and Virgil barrelled into the room. Uncle Lee, who had been retelling the Mars landing, stopped mid-word and frowned.

His biggest little brother’s eyes widened as he skidded to a halt and straightened himself up. “Uh, excuse me, Uncle Lee.” A blink, and he looked fit to burst. “Could I please speak to Scott?”

“Sure….squirt.”

That caused Virgil to frown. Scott thought it was funny. Uncle Lee never seemed to be able to remember Virgil’s name.

And besides, Virgil had a thing about being smaller than Scott and didn’t like it being pointed out.

However, Virgil hurried over anyway. “Scotty, can I borrow Chuckles?”

Blink “His name’s not ‘Chuckles’, it’s Chuck.”

“Oh, okay.” Virgil bit his lip. “But can I anyway?”

“Why?”

“Johnny won’t leave me alone.”

“He’ll eat his goggles.”

“Better than him eating my nuts.”

Uncle Lee made an odd sound that dissolved into a cough when Scott and Virgil looked at him.

Scott sighed. “Virgil, it’s Christmas. We’re supposed to share.”

Virgil dragged Scott part way across the room, away from Uncle Lee and lowered his voice.

“I tried, but the kit contains small bits. Mom said Johnny wasn’t allowed to play with small things. She said he was too young.” It was almost hissed under Virgil’s breath. “I don’t want him to get hurt or to get into trouble. Chuckles always distracts him.”

His name wasn’t ‘Chuckles’, it was ‘Chuck’ after Chuck Yeager, the first pilot to break the sound barrier. But Virgil had called the bear ‘Chuckles’ once as a joke, Johnny had picked it up and now it was all about Chuckles. It was annoying.

“Well, give him the nuts and tell him to go eat them somewhere else.”

Virgil stared at him aghast, but then his eyes widened. “Nuts. As in ‘nuts and bolts’, Scott! I’m building the robot Grandpa Taylor brought me. Johnny keeps trying to eat bits of metal.”

Oh.

Uncle Taylor had picked up his tablet, but was now staring at them, a question on his face. “You boys okay?”

Scott nodded. “Yes, Uncle Lee. Virgil just needs some help with his kit. I’ll be back in a moment.”

Blue eyes gauged him, but Scott was more worried about his littlest brother and dragged Virgil out the door.

“Where is Johnny?”

“On the floor outside my room.”

“You didn’t leave the door open, did you?”

“No.”

Scott hurried down the hall. “Why didn’t you call Mom?”

“I tried. Mom is talking to Aunt Val and she sounded sad. I didn’t want to interrupt and I didn’t want Johnny to get into trouble. Chuckles will fix it.”

“His name is not Chuckles!”

Scott rounded the corner and to his horror, Virgil’s door was wide open.

He didn’t bother to acknowledge Virgil’s gasp of horror, but instead barrelled on through the door terrified he would find his little brother choking on the floor.

But Virgil’s desk was empty except for the scattered pieces of his project. A quick glance around the room and Scott quickly found Johnny.

He was no more than a tuft of red hair wrapped around Scott’s pilot bear, half buried in Virgil’s bed covers.

Two wide eyes popped up over the top of those goggles. “Scotty!”

Scott hurried over to the bed. “Johnny, are you okay?”

“Chuckles!” Johnny held up the bear and grinned.

Scott sighed and sat down on the bed next to his littlest brother. His heart was beating fast - he had been so scared.

Virgil stood in the centre of his room staring at Johnny, his lip trembling. It was obvious he realised what could have happened when he left to get help.

Tears welled in his eyes. “I’m sorry, Scotty. I thought he couldn’t get in. I didn’t want him to get hurt.”

“Virg, he’s okay.” The fright in Virgil’s eyes had the eldest hurrying off the bed from one brother to another. “C’mon, Johnny’s fine. He went and got Chuckles, didn’t you, Johnny?”

The three-year-old’s eyes peered up at Virgil registering his distress and soaking it in like a sponge. His grin vanished and his brow crumpled. “Virgil?” Johnny clambered out of the bed and scampered over to his next eldest brother. “Chuckles? Chuckles make it better?” He offered Virgil the bear.

Virgil stared at Chuckles for a moment before reaching out and taking the fluffy toy. He poked at it gently before hugging it to his chest.

John threw himself at his brother with a huge hug almost knocking Virgil over. Scott reached out and steadied him before adding his own arm to the mix and hugging both his brothers at once. “It’s okay. We’re okay.”

Scott had to scrub snot off Chuckles’ ear later that night.

-o-o-o-

Christmas Eve was family relaxing time before the busy of the next day. Mom, who had been in the kitchen with Onaha since just after breakfast, called a halt to everything at six in the evening and they sat down for a light buffet of a meal. Every family member donated time or a dish which was mostly warm finger foods like pie and things on sticks.

Scott always looked forward to dessert on Christmas Eve because there were all sorts of interesting things to be had. Aunt Val’s Christmas cookies was one of them.

He stood staring at the different planes so artistically drawn on each of them. They were good enough to be recognisable and none of that generic kiddy stuff kids’ books tried to throw at him. Some were historical, some more modern.

“Trying to decide which plane to eat this year, honey?” Grandma Tracy crept up behind him and wrapped her arms around him. Her long blonde hair flopped over his shoulder as she leant in to kiss him on the cheek. “Merry Christmas, Scotty.”

“Merry Christmas, Grandma.” But he was still frowning at the cookies. “I can’t see Dad’s plane.”

“Your dad has flown several of those.”

“Yeah, but I want the Sparrowhawk Anderson ZX3.”

Grandma snorted. “Then you’ll have to chase up your father. I saw him nab it earlier.”

Scott turned to his grandmother. “Really?”

“Really.” And it was his father’s deep, smiling voice as Scott was suddenly scooped up in strong laughing arms. “C’mon, ‘Little Jeff’, I’ve saved you your favourite cookie.”

Scott giggled and squirmed, but ultimately clung to his dad, resting his head on his shoulder for just a moment as he was carried across the room to his father’s chair and plomped down on his lap as the man sat down. The longed-for cookie was produced and Scott grabbed it. “Thanks, Dad.”

A big hand on his back, another on his knee, Scott was held close.

“So, what have you and your brothers been up to this week?”

Scott stared at the cookie with the grey, blue and red jet iced on top. “Virgil, did a good drawing of a plane. He didn’t get the tail quite right, but I helped him with that. Johnny learnt some new words.” He couldn’t hold back any longer and bit into the cookie.

It was the best.

Dad snorted. “I heard. I suspected it was you who taught Johnny to say ‘extra-orbital’.”

Scott grinned, his mouth full of biscuit crumbs.

“Swallow before you talk, son.” But his father was smirking.

Scott downed the remains of the cookie, caught between enjoying it and the opportunity to sit and talk with his dad. “He knows all the planets, too.”

“Really?” His father frowned. “He’s only three years old, Scotty.”

Scott sat a bit straighter. I taught him all the names and showed him Mars where you and Uncle Lee went.”

The smile that appeared on his dad’s face only encouraged him. “Virgil drew him pictures of each of them and we stuck them on the wall in his room.”

“That was very kind of the two of you.”

“It made Johnny happy.” Scott didn’t want to mention that Johnny was sometimes sad and always serious. “I want to help him.”

“It sounds like you are doing an excellent job.”

“I’m the eldest.” And Scott knew what Dad was going to say.

“Yes, you are, and that means you have to look after your little brothers. They look up to you and they are your responsibility.”

Scott stared up at those serious grey eyes and for just a second Dad looked like Johnny. “Yes, Dad. I will, I promise.”

His father’s big hand patted his back. “I know you will.”

Scott smiled.

-o-o-o-

End Part Two

#thunderbirds are go #thunderbirds fanfiction #thunderbirds #Scott Tracy #chuckles

[a-froger-epic]

What are your top 5 favorite angst moments in fics by other people

Thanks for resending the ask! The original one seems to be stuck in Tumblr limbo.

This was so hard. I literally just spent 45min going through my bookmarks and I could point you to some people's entire fic catalogues or entire fics without being able to pic a single scene in particular because they have so much delicious angst. (Yeah, I'm looking at you @aboutnothingness and @freddieofhearts and @i-lay-my-life-before-queen's Omegaverse Froger, or also @immistermercury's Jimercury ballet!Freddie epic and really several oneshots by some of my favourite authors in their entirety.)

But. I had to choose. So here are, in no particular order, some scenes:

---

Princes of the Universe by @tikiniki

Sci-fi AU. John saves Prince Freddie's life. 😰

Then, through the screams and gunfire, John heard Roger’s voice.

“John, Freddie! Watch out!”

And John spun around, just in time to see Roger throw himself towards Kassius, Kassius who had his gun raised and aimed at Freddie’s back.

His breath caught in John’s chest. Roger wouldn’t be fast enough.

He wasn’t.

The release of the bullet from Kassius’s gun disappeared in the rest of the noise. John acted on instinct.

He was barely conscious of moving at all. He barely noticed shoving Freddie to the side as hard as he could. He didn’t hear the surprised outcry leaving Freddie’s mouth.

But he felt it. Felt when the bullet pierced his chest.

The force of the bullet made him stumble back. He tried to draw a breath, tried to make a sound, but all was white-hot pain. The next second the guards were upon them. John was shoved in the chaos, his knees buckling beneath his weight.

Unable to catch himself, he fell over the edge of the pool.

Just before he breached the surface, he heard it.

The sound of voices crying out his name.

He smiled as he hit the water.

---

Aftercare by @bisexualroger

Freddie got mugged. 🥺

There’s an alien quality to the mirror, despite the fact that Freddie uses it every day and has done for months now. Perhaps it’s not the object itself that’s unfamiliar, but rather what it’s reflecting, the offending image subsequently contaminating the rest of the room with its strangeness. Lucky for him though; if the face in front of him registered as his own it might be too much for him to handle. Today’s been difficult enough without having to fully acknowledge the physical consequences of his earlier misfortune.

Freddie leans closer to the glass. The sight makes his lip tremble and his hands shake, but he swallows down his distress and reminds himself to view it objectively. It’s not his face, just a problem that needs to be fixed.

Taking another deep breath he tries again to go in with the cotton wool pad. Slippery with alcohol the cheap fabric desperately wants to slide out of his hand, but he keeps his grip steady as he brings it to his face. Immediately though the burning sting has him wincing. He tries to hold his nerve but the pain only intensifies, making his eyes prickle so he can no longer see what he’s doing. With a stifled cry of frustration he tosses the wool down into the sink and slides to the floor.

Once there his first instinct is to curl in on himself, but the pain in his ribs prevents him from doing so, which only makes matters worse. He’s been at this for fifteen bloody minutes, and much as he wants to shout and rage at the unfairness of it all his anger is infuriatingly manifesting itself through tears rather than determination. For goodness sake all he wants to do is have a hot shower and forget the entirety of this awful day, but he can’t until he’s dealt with this. It’s so agonisingly unjust.

---

The Path of Nevermore by @plainxte

Things are complicated. *sings* Give me one night only, one night only... 😭

"Yeah. I should probably head out," Roger said, looking around him. He was sure there was somewhere that he had promised to be that day.

"Please, Rog," Freddie said. "Don't go. Don't leave me alone. I mean. Don't send me to the path," Freddie said.

Roger turned to him with a smile. It quickly faded when he studied the look on Freddie's face: he was completely serious, and there was no hint of amusement in his eyes. He meant it, Roger realised. When Freddie said nothing more, just continued to look at him, it finally hit him what Freddie was saying. The seriousness of what he was asking.

"Of course I won't leave you," Roger whispered. "You know that. I wouldn't. But you know I can't, I can't – "

Freddie carefully lifted one hand, putting it hesitantly on his cheek, only just touching. His fingertips ghosted over Roger's cheekbone. "I know," he said. "And that's not what I meant. And I can't, either. But just for now. Please don't go. Please."

Roger took a breath. His thoughts were getting no clearer; if anything, his whole head seemed to be in a fog. He wasn't thinking; he couldn't think. He could only nod. Freddie leaned closer, and Roger closed his eyes. After what seemed like an age, he felt soft lips touch his. He reached up his own hand to Freddie's face, skimming over his jaw to come to a rest in his hair.

"And about time, too," he breathed.

---

Sobering Up by... oh whoops, it seems their tumblr was deleted or changed names. Well, nevermind, I still love this fic so much.

Roger and Freddie don't know how to deal. 💔

They lie there afterwards, stewing in a pregnant silence. Normally, sex put Roger right to sleep but this… he was unable to wrap his head around any of it.

He rolled over to lie on his stomach away from Freddie. He took a pillow and clenched it tightly in his arms, pressing his face deeply into it. Some animal instinct was telling him if he squeezed hard enough then the painful sickening swirl of emotions in his chest might ebb away.

Freddie softly cleared his throat. “Rog,”

“Hm?” Roger feigned sleepiness. He didn’t feel like having any kind of pillow talk.

“What…” Freddie faltered. “What do you think the future has in store for us?” Roger felt his heart seize up.

“What’d you mean ‘us’?” His voice was muffled in his pillow, but it didn’t mask the cracking on the last syllable. He heard Freddie make a sharp intake of breath.

“Queen.” He said. “What do you think we’ll be like in the future? D’you think we’ll make it?”

Roger was quiet at first. Freddie wasn’t the type to avoid the elephant in the room like this.

“Dunno,” Roger sighed, still clinging tightly to his pillow. “But I won’t stick around if there are better places to be.”

“Are there better places to be?” Freddie’s feigned curiosity did nothing to hide the anxiety in his voice. And it dawned on Roger that they weren’t going to talk about the sex. They were never going to talk about it. It had happened and that was all. It was too big, much too big, for either of them to face. This was Freddie’s way of asking if Roger was okay with that.

Roger didn’t exactly feel relief at this revelation. Somehow he felt like he had given Freddie a much more intimate part of himself than he had given any other partner. And the seriousness of that weighed heavily on him. Nothing would be the same for him again. But it had to be.

---

On the side of a hill, a sprinkling of leaves by @quirkysubject

Freddie falls in a puddle and can't get up (also this scene is way too long to quote all of it, but like THIS WHOLE SCENE MAN 😭💕)

“Jesus, Fred, are you alright?” Hands are on his back, his shoulders, trying to urge him up. Oh, how Freddie wishes Roger would just leave him alone (liar, the warm and tiny and inextinguishable gleam of hope inside him whispers).

“Fine,” he mumbles as he lies face down in the mud, waiting, praying for the earth to swallow him up.

“Freddie, come on, get up.” The hands tug a little harder. And then, when Freddie just shakes his head, Roger’s hands slide under his armpits, and he is hauled upright with a frustrated, “What the hell’s the matter with you?”

It’s this that does it. All ability to contain himself evaporates.

“I hate this so much!”

The words explode out of him. He can hear how his voice sounds, shrill, pathetic, whiny. Useless. But he can’t stop himself. “I hate everything about this. My ankle hurts and my arm hurts and I want proper tea with milk, and a bath, and my bed, and Tom and Jerry, and a slice of toast that is actually toasted and I… I just want to go home.”

It’s a small mercy that he can blame any wetness on his cheeks on the rain. Not that it will do him much good. He is throwing a tantrum at the worst possible moment, and Roger is going to do what he always does when Freddie is being unreasonable - walk out, have a smoke, come back an hour or two later when the storm has blown over.

Only if he leaves now, Freddie will melt into the ground and never come up again.

---

A special mention goes to a Doctor Who fic which is probably my favourite angsty fic of all time, because even though I'm not active in the Who fandom right now, I'm still Doctor/Master trash. And Locked in Orbit by @nicolauda (I think this is yours? Correct me if wrong) is one of the best goddamn pieces of writing with that ship that exist for me.

#Fic recs #Angsty moments #ask response #Phew that was hard

[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

But You Can Never Leave [Chapter 7: Forget Everything You Know]

Hi y’all! I just wanted to take a moment to thank you all so much for reading and for showing me and my fics some love. You better believe that I see EVERY. SINGLE. reblog, comment, tag, and message, and they mean the absolute world to me! I know that a lot of content creators are frustrated and taking breaks right now, but rest assured you will not be able to get rid of me if even a SINGLE person looks forward to something I write. I’ll finish this fic (eventually), and I’ll finish the next one too (it already has a name!), and I won’t disappear or leave the Queen/BoRhap fandom at any point in the foreseeable future. Lots of love to you all, stay safe, and I hope you enjoy! 💜 💜 💜

Chapter summary: Y/N brings home some friends; Brian attempts an intervention; John draws a line; Roger gets an answer.

This series is a work of fiction, and is (very) loosely inspired by real people and events. Absolutely no offense is meant to actual Queen or their families.

Song inspiration: Hotel California by The Eagles.

Chapter warnings: Language.

Chapter list (and all my writing) available HERE

Taglist: @queen-turtle-boiii​ @loveandbeloved29​ @killer-queen-xo​ @maggieroseevans​ @imnotvibingveryguccimrstark​ @im-an-adult-ish​ @queenlover05​ @someforeigntragedy​ @imtheinvisiblequeen​ @joemazzmatazz​ @seven-seas-of-ham-on-rhye​ @namelesslosers​ @inthegardensofourminds​ @deacyblues​ @youngpastafanmug​ @sleepretreat​ @hardyshoe​ @bramblesforbreakfast​ @sevenseasofcats​ @tensecondvacation​ @bookandband​ @queen-crue​ @jennyggggrrr​ @madeinheavxn​ @whatgoeson-itslate​ @brianssixpence​

Please yell at me if I forget to tag you! :)

“Smile, everyone!” Your dad peeks through the viewfinder of the Canon F-1 and beams. “One...two...three...say Queen!”

“Queen!” you all shout gleefully. The flash illuminates the dining room, and you blink away momentary blindness. The table materializes back into vision: lobsters, clams, haddock chowder, sourdough bread, fried oysters, pierogis with Vermont cheddar cheese, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes...and, of course, Boston cream pie for dessert.

“Ah, perfection,” your dad sighs contently. “Please continue, Mr. Mercury.”

“Mr. Mercury!” Brian whines, incredulous. “Like he’s got a bloody PhD or something!”

Freddie cracks a lobster claw. He hasn’t taken his sunglasses or wrist-full of clanging bangles off all afternoon. Your parents are profoundly confused by him, but welcoming nonetheless. “I’m a professor of lusciousness. Pay attention and you could learn something.”

Brian rolls his eyes and dunks a hunk of sourdough bread into his chowder.

“So,” Freddie tells your mother between bites of lobster dripping with drawn butter. “Our darling damsel in distress was in the clutches of that horrid, dodgy wanker when none other than our very own Roger Meddows Taylor—”

“You weren’t even there!” Brian protests. “I wasn’t even there! This is, what, a third-hand account?!”

“Eat your soup, peasant. Thank you. Anyway, our beloved Roger comes raging out of nowhere, red-faced, nostrils flaring, a terrifying sight to behold, grabs this guy by his hair and slams his despicable face directly into a marble column. Broken nose, cracked orbital socket, blood everywhere! It was magnificent. I’ve never been more proud.”

“Good for you!” your mother cheers, patting the back of Roger’s hand encouragingly. He smiles at her, warmly, radiantly, like the wildfire he’s always reminded you of. And you marvel at how every human on this earth is made of the same fundamental components—blood and muscles and vessels and nerves, hearts and enigmatic brain matter and ribs, vulnerable parts, armored parts, all webbed together like nature’s own organic circuit board—and yet the marks they leave on you can feel so different: burns, scars, bruises, shadows, imprints that are deep enough to brush bone and never fade.

“Mom, the guy could have died!”

“Did he?” she asks innocently.

“Nope,” Roger says.

“Well then, Mr. Taylor here is a hero in my book.”

“Mr. Taylor!” Brian groans.

“I was petrified he would turn out to be the son of an executive or producer or something and the band would be ruined,” you say. “Fortunately he was just someone’s annoying frat brother from college who already had a reputation for being a sleazebag. So, we were in luck.”

“You were in luck that Mr. Taylor was there,” your mother points out, gazing at him dreamily. This delightful English boy is going to be my son-in-law and give me gorgeous, doe-eyed grandchildren, that look says.

“Yes, a literal superhero,” John says ruefully, sipping a Manhattan. Your dad has a passionate love for mixing cocktails, especially for guests who also happen to be rock stars.

“Mom. Don’t make his ego any bigger, please. I’m begging you.”

Roger snarls around a mouthful of Boston cream pie, sending your mom into a fit of giggles.

“I’m just glad you’re okay, dear.” She smooths your hair. “And that you have people to keep you safe all the way over there across the ocean, and that you’re happy.”

“Yes, your work environment is much improved, isn’t it?” Brian says. “That supervisor you had at the hospital was an absolute bear!”

Your dad strokes his short grey beard. “Well...” he admits. “That may have been my fault.”

Brian’s brow crinkles. “Really?”

Your mom turns to you. “You didn’t tell them?!”

“Oh, is there a scandalous backstory?” Freddie inquires, elated. “Do tell, darling!”  

“Once upon a time, in a kingdom far far away—just kidding, it was here in Boston—my archnemesis Patricia and my dad dated.”

Roger drops his fork, appalled. “No!”

Freddie’s nose wrinkles in revulsion. “Why?!”

Your dad rocks back in his chair and laughs loudly, heartily. “She wasn’t always so cantankerous, if you can believe it. She was a sweet girl, wonderful even. But then I met my future wife, and...” He smirks guiltily. “What can I say? The heart wants what it wants!”

You nod along. “And I got the illustrious honor of being an outlet for the frustration stemming from Patricia’s lifelong unrequited love.”

“You saucy minx!” Freddie playfully lashes your mom’s shoulder with a cloth napkin. “Homewrecker!”

She chuckles, not the least bit offended. “People get together under all sorts of strange circumstances, and you know what? You can’t wreck a home if the home wasn’t already half-wrecked before you got there, that’s what I think.”

Roger raises his Patriot’s Punch. “I’ll drink to that.”

Brian clutches his New England Express, bewildered. “Are we...toasting to infidelity?”

“Oh, does that horrify you?” Rog asks sarcastically. Brian grimaces, but dutifully raises his glass.

“We’re toasting to love,” your dad clarifies. “However it comes, as long as it’s true.”

John holds his Manhattan aloft. “To love.”

Freddie clinks his Flying Elvis against the other beverages, including your parents’ wine glasses and your Cranberry Crush. “Cheers!” Then Fred glances at the clock and swiftly polishes off his slice of Boston cream pie.

“Can’t you all stay a little longer?” your mom pleads, collecting plates and gazing longingly at Roger. “This has been so much fun...”

“They have soundcheck at seven, Mom. We have to leave for the stadium soon.”

��Well, before you jet off to your next adventure, can I treat anyone to a long distance call?” your dad asks.

Brian perks up. “Really?!” You know there’s a ring in the future for Chrissie; not an expensive or extravagant ring (not that Chris would want that anyway), but a ring nonetheless. You know because Brian has taken you shopping to help him choose one.

“Of course! You can use the phone in my office. It’s Valentine’s Day, after all. I’m sure there are some lovely ladies back in jolly old England who would be over the moon to hear from you.”

“That would be very much appreciated!” Brian says. “And thank you so much, this has been such a treat, you have no idea how long it’s been since we had a proper homemade meal.”

“I had to rehabilitate the reputation of us Yankees, didn’t I? Now come on, Mr. May, I’ll show you to the office...”

“Mr. May...I like the sound of that!”

“Ten minutes, Bri!” Freddie calls, following them down the hallway. “Then it’s my turn...!”

You begin gathering up the empty glasses, but Roger promptly snatches them away. “No way, Boston babe. You go relax. I’ll help your mom.”

“I think she’s in love with you.”

He grins. “Do you have a secret stepdaddy fetish I could exploit?”

“Oh my god. Roger.”

He snickers and sweeps off into the kitchen. It’s only then that you realize John has disappeared. You check the kitchen, the living room, the hallway, the study, and finally the front porch; John is standing outside in the cold, smoking and watching the setting sun. The sky is threaded with cerulean, rust orange, lavender, indigo. You pull on your coat and go out to join him.

“We’ll make it to Florence one of these days,” you promise John, resting your arms on the wooden, white-painted porch railing. Your mother hung baskets of fresh flowers for the band’s visit, which swing lazily in the breeze. “Crank out a few more hits and we’ll get the record company to add it to the tour itinerary.”

“Wouldn’t that be nice.”

“Are you going to call Veronica?”

He shrugs, frowns, exhales a lungful of smoke into frigid New England air. “I don’t know if I should.”

“You don’t think she’d like that?” you ask, confounded.

“I think she might like it too much.”

“Ohhhhh.” You read his soft greyish eyes, which are faraway and somber, sad even. “I’m sorry, John. You know she’s wild about you.”

“I know it.” He takes a drag off his cigarette. “She’s the first person who ever was, actually. The first person who ever noticed me. Came up to me out of the blue at a disco and asked me to dance, me! So I said yes, like you do when you’re the guy nobody notices. And then I said yes again, and again, and again, until one day I realized...oh, this girl thinks we’re getting married. When the hell did that happen?”

“I noticed you,” you contest.  

John chuckles and nods. “You did,” he agrees. “Right away. Tried to win me over when I was too nervous to finish a sentence around you. But that was long after I’d met Veronica.”

“Well, you can’t break up with her tonight. On Valentine’s Day?! That would be traumatic.”

“Agreed.”

“We’ll have a few days in London between the American and Asian legs of the tour. You can think it over and decide what to do then. I’m happy to arrange the getaway taxi if that’s something that interests you.”

“Yeah.” Again, he peers out into the Western horizon, into rising stars.

“John?”

Now he looks to you. He’s a little too thoughtful, too low. There’s something you’re not seeing.

“...Is there somebody else?”

He doesn’t speak; he just stares at you with those velvety azure-grey eyes, drums his fingers against the railing, lets the ash from his cigarette crumble into the snow-dusted Blue Pacific Junipers.

Roger barrels through the front door and out onto the porch. “There you are, Deaks! I thought we were going to have to find a new bassist. Enlist Nurse Nightingale’s mum or something.”

John smirks and crushes the rest of his cigarette in your father’s ashtray. “I suspect you’d do just fine without me.”

“Oh no. No way. Not happening.”

“That’s kind of you,” John says, unconvinced.

“Here, I’ll prove it.” Rog holds out his calloused hand. “If you ever leave, I leave too. Come on, Deaks, shake on it. It’s official. It’s a pact. There’s no Queen without John Deacon.”

Reluctantly, trying not to show how pleased he is, John shakes. “Alright.”

Roger grins triumphantly. “Signed, sealed, delivered. You’re ours for life, baby.”

“Deaky, do you want the phone?!” Freddie yells from inside the house.

John sighs and exchanges a knowing glance with you. “I guess I should say hi.”

“Okay, but quickly!” Rog presses. “We gotta go!”

“So bossy...” John ducks inside; and Roger, though he’s not wearing anything over his pale pink button-up shirt—sufficiently sophisticated to impress your parents—comes to the porch railing to join you.

“You’re not staying out here, are you?” You eye his thin shirt worriedly, the goosebumps rising over his collarbones, his bare forearms where he rolled up his sleeves to help your mom wash the dishes.

He tosses you a mischievous wink. “I’ve got no one to call.”

Roger looks up at the hanging baskets of flowers, plucks out a cerise carnation, and offers it to you. You mean to say something witty, something sardonic, something that will make him laugh; but all your words vanish into cold February air. You take the carnation, smiling helplessly.

“Happy Valentine’s Day,” Roger whispers.

You just let me know if you ever change your mind, okay?

Okay.

He turns to go back inside the house.

I won’t fall in love with him. I won’t fall in love with him. I won’t fall in love with him.

Then Roger pauses in the doorway. “You coming, Boston babe? I can’t have you catching pneumonia or something. I won’t know how to fix you.”

Oh, you realize, with horror and yet relief, all those grueling lies stripped away. It’s too late.

~~~~~~~~~~

You knock on the frame of the dressing room door. “Hi Bri!”

He glances over from where he sits in front of the mirror, rimming his eyes with inky liner. Soundcheck went swimmingly, and now Queen has thirty minutes until they need to be onstage. You can hear the disembodied reverberation of voices from the waiting crowd through the walls. “Hello, love. Come in.”

“Freddie said you needed to see me. Did you rip a sleeve or something? I brought my kit—”

“No, it’s not that.” He pats the chair beside him. The boys practically always get ready together before a show, but you suspect profoundly introverted Brian is experiencing one of his post-socialization crashes after dinner with your parents. Something about him is tired, very tired, almost drained to empty. “Join me.”

“Sure,” you say cautiously. You shove your medical kit onto the countertop and then reach to feel his forehead. “Are you feeling alright...?”

“I’m fine, love. I just have a favor to ask.”

“Anything.”

Brian sighs deeply, sets down the eyeliner, swivels his chair towards you. “I need you to promise me that you’re not going to start seeing Roger.”

You titter, deflecting, brushing Brian’s hair away from his troubled, angular face. “Well, as the official Queen touring nurse, I see him quite a lot.”

Brian catches your wrist. “I’m being serious.”

Now your brow knits into tight agitated lines. “I’m curious as to why you think that’s something you have a say in.”

“Bloody hell, I’m not trying to offend you—”

“Job well done.”

“Dear, please, listen to me—”

“Eight months,” you hiss through your teeth as you tear away from him. “For eight months I’ve listened and avoided and resisted and ignored and it’s not going away.”

“Oh, fuck,” Brian breathes in despair. “You love him.”

There are tears biting in the periphery of your vision; you don’t want them to be there, but they are. Your voice is hoarse and trembling. “Bri, please don’t.”

Brian shakes his head and motions with his hands frenetically, desperately, trying to make you understand. “Look, sometimes...sometimes the people we love, the people who own us, the people who fucking set us on fire...they’re not the people we end up with. And that’s not always a bad thing. It’s necessary. It’s self-preservation. Because sometimes the people who set us on fire would burn us alive.”

You gape at him, furious, stunned. “That’s just fantastic, Brian. You’re a true romantic. Jesus christ, does Chrissie know about this? Is that why you’re with her, because she’s, what...safe?!”

“No, that’s not fair, Chrissie’s great, she’s steady and supportive and she’ll make a wonderful mother one day, and my parents adore her—”

“Those aren’t reasons to marry someone, Brian!”

“They are!” He leaps to his feet. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you! You have to think about these things, you have to be rational, you have to protect yourself—”

“Why the fuck do you care?” you flare bitterly.

“Because you saved my life.”

“Stop it, I didn’t.”

“You did, I truly believe that. And I want you to stay with the band. And I want you to be happy. But, dear, please, I’m begging you...this is not the way to do it.”

“I’m not going to go out to some pub and drag home a random guy who’s suitably passionless and predictable enough to be Brian-May-approved.”

“That’s not what I’m asking you to do—”

“Because you’re such an expert on relationships!” you shout, exasperated. “Planning to propose to Chris while you’re still secretly pining over some fling from New Orleans, fucking groupies and then having the nerve to mope around guilt-ridden the next morning as if anyone but you was responsible for that decision, and do I say anything about it?! Do I ever say a single fucking word about it to you, or Fred, or Roger, or your future wife, or anybody?! No, because it’s not my life!”

The dressing room door flies open and John storms inside. “What’s going on?!”

You cross your arms and stare at the floor. Brian’s wide green eyes flick to John, to you, back to John. If it was Freddie, Brian would tell him in a second, would try to enlist him in the effort, and it would probably work; but John is a different story. John won’t side with Brian over you, everybody knows that. And John has a talent for sharpening words into blades. “Um. Nothing.”  

“I could hear you in the hallway,” John says flatly. “Obviously it wasn’t nothing.”

Brian points to you. “Have you tried to talk her out of this? Maybe you should, maybe she’d listen.”

“It’s not my choice to make, just like it isn’t yours. Worry about your own body count. It seems to be growing exponentially these days.”

Brian scoffs. “Because you’d be so thrilled if she ended up with him, right?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?!” you demand.

Brian and John glare at each other from across the room. John raises his eyebrows, daring Bri to answer. Brian gnaws his lower lip, but doesn’t elaborate. The air is heavy, tense, electrified.  

“Don’t upset her again,” John says darkly.

Brian shows the white palms of his hands in surrender. “Fine.”

John waves for you to follow him. “Come on.” And he slams the door behind you as you both escape into the hallway.

“I’m sorry.” You chase away stray tears with the back of your hands. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to get anyone worked up right before the show...”

“Don’t worry about it. I treasure any excuse to harass Brian.”

You study him, seeking answers, seeking more than you know how to put into words. “Do you think I’m being stupid? If you do, you can tell me.”

“No,” John responds carefully. “I think you’re being hopeful. And I’d like to believe that stupidity and hopefulness are two very different things.”

You smile. “I don’t deserve you.”

“That’s very inaccurate.” He fluffs his hair with his fingertips. “Do you want to touch it before we go on stage?”

You feign demureness. “Hmm...”

“Oh come on. You know you want to. It’s extra voluminous right now, Roger shared some of his magical mousse or whatever. Something way too expensive. You should thoroughly berate him for it.”

You laugh. “I’ll see what I can do.” You comb your hands through his brunette hair, and John’s right; it’s extraordinarily full and soft, and smells like honeysuckles. “You always know how to get me smiling, don’t you?”

“You do insist that I have game. Though I remain skeptical.”

“Good luck tonight. Not that you need it.”

John’s rough thumb lifts your chin, then whisks away a tear you missed. “You’ll be watching, right?”

“I always am.” And that’s the truth; you haven’t missed a Queen show since you met them.

He beams, those gentle grey eyes incandescent. “Then we’ll have an ocean of luck.”

~~~~~~~~~~

Exactly twenty-four hours later, Queen is in New York City.

The thunderous bassline of the opening act shudders through the concrete walls. You’re staring yourself down in the bathroom mirror under harsh florescent lights, your palms gripping the cold rim of a white sink, your eyes shimmering with black and gold shadow, your lip gloss slick and crimson. There’s not a single thing left to do. You’re running out of time.

You breathe in, breathe out, snatch your purse off the floor, breeze out into the hallway.

You can hear the boys’ laughter even before you open the dressing room door. Inside, Brian is tuning his Red Special with his mantis-like legs propped up on the countertop, John is attempting to teach Freddie how to make popcorn in a microwave without setting anything on fire, Roger is scrutinizing his hair in the mirror and frowning as he rearranges it with a comb.  

“Hello, darling!” Freddie warbles. “Can I interest you in some delicious and expertly-prepared popcorn?” He opens the microwave, and smoke pours out. “Oh, you bitch!”

“I’ll pass, Freddie.” You glide to where Roger is sitting, knot your fingers through his blond hair, and tug his head back so you can kiss him. He tastes like mint gum and the ghost of smoke and reckless intemperance; he tastes like everything you’ve ever wanted. There are gasps, and surely dropped jaws as well; but you don’t have eyes for them. “Okay,” you tell Roger.

He stares up at you with huge, starry eyes, a dazed grin slowly lighting up his face. “You changed your mind.”

“Come find me after the show.”

“Yes ma’am.”

You move to wipe your blood-red gloss from his lips, but Roger stops you, knits his hand through yours, stands to meet you.

“Leave it,” he murmurs. “I want them to know.”  

“Want them to know...?”

His lips touch yours again, smiling and scorching and ravenous. “That I’m yours.”

#roger taylor fic #roger taylor x reader #but you can never leave fic #but you can never leave #but you can never leave series #queen fic

[buzzdixonwriter]

TROTS AND BONNIE Review

Trigger Warning: This will review a work that often addresses human sexuality, emotional / physical / sexual abuse, and adolescents’ views on same.  Be advised.

. . . 

When I was growing up in the 1950s and early 1960s, two old comic strips that remained popular were J. R. Williams’ Out Our Way and Gene Ahern’s Our Boarding House, both started in the 1920s and, from their daily panels and Sunday pages, never moving out of that decade.  My favorite cartoons on local kid shows were Fleischer Brothers Betty Boop and Popeye cartoons, many of which took place in urban / suburban settings heavily reflective of 1920s and 1930s America.

So when I first encountered Shary Flenniken’s Trots And Bonnie I instantly recognized the flavor and style of the strips.

The content, on the other hand, came straight out of her underground comix pedigree, with the refreshing point of view of the female gaze instead of the admittedly too often misogynistic male cartoonists of the milieu.

Flenniken is one of the best artists and writers to come from the underground era, displaying a confident early mastery of the form (don’t listen to her protestations she really wasn’t good at the start of her career; she clearly ranked among the finest of the underground comix artists).

But the sweet and innocent look of Trots And Bonnie belies the frank and frequently shocking honesty of Flenniken’s work.  

As cartoonist Emily Flake notes in her introduction, “that’s the terrible power of children, the monstrous innocence that makes them capable of anything, a state of being we fatuously describe as ‘pure.’”

Innocence is not synonymous with purity in the world of Trots And Bonnie because the cast lack the moral and cultural filters we acquire as adults.  They are reporting on reality as they see it, and as with all children (and the elderly, and drunks) there’s nothing to stop them from commenting on the foibles of hypocrisy of humanity, nor is there a single iota of shame to hold back their expression.

And when you add the impact of puberty to that mix, holy &#@%, you have no room left for pretense or propriety.

Hold on to your hats, folks, ‘cuz it’s gonna be one helluva ride.

One helluva ride…and a hilarious one, too.

If modern audiences can get past the admittedly often shocking visuals and situations, they’ll find some of the most brilliant coming-of-age comedy ever penned.

The truth is always an absolute defense, and Trots And Bonnie dishes it out lavishly.  Brava to Shary Flenniken for having the courage (or honesty, of lack of filter; take your pick) to pen it, to the original underground comix and National Lampoon to publish it, and to new York Review Comics to bring almost all of it back (Flenniken herself opted to withhold a few strips that she feels might be construed now as hurtful or insulting).

Flenniken is the daughter of a military family, growing up in a variety of climes and places before her father retired in the Seattle area.

She reached adolescence and young adulthood during the hippie era, and the earliest strips cast a fond eye back on that time.

An original member of the infamous Air Pirates crew, she and fellow underground comix artists gained immediate recognition skewering Disney icons.  Air Pirates Funnies and Paul Kassner’s The Realist generated no small amount of tsuris for the House of Mouse in the late 1960s / early 1970s but The Realist, true to its name, possessed to good sense to adhere to the unofficial so-called “one-time fair use parody” rule while the Air Pirates pressed their luck with Air Pirates Funnies #2, resulting in the Disney legal department descending on them like an anvil dropped from orbit.

Crawling away from the wreckage, Flenniken kept contributing to a number of underground venues, creating the first Trots and Bonnie strip for the 1971 underground comix Merton Of The Movement. 

Trots and Bonnie (soon joined by Pepsi, a beguilingly sweet looking elfin-like child with the heart of Germaine Greer, the reproductive organs of Karen Finley, and the mouth of an interstate trucker) popped up in several single page strips and short stories until NatLamp recruited Flenniken in 1972 to be a regular contributor and (briefly) an editor.

NatLamp proved to be the perfect venue for Flenniken and her characters because the magazine possessed the economic mojo and suicidal “Who gives a &#@%?” attitude to publish Trots And Bonnie while at the same time providing a perfect audience of proto-incels who desperately needed some consciousness raising, especially if said consciousness raising arrived in the form of a kick in the groin.

Trots And Bonnie’s tenure at NatLamp lasted slightly more than two decades, but a big hunk of that era saw the Reagan culture wars raging, not to mention much of the country becoming obsessed with a literal modern day witch hunt in the infamous Satanic panic (an apt subject for Flenniken’s characters, but one she wisely avoided, thus following the old military adage, “Never draw fire on your own position.”).

The already edgy material in both NatLamp in general and Trots And Bonnie in particular threatened to be perceived as too edgy by law enforcement, legislators, and judicial authorities who seemed either unwilling or incapable of distinguishing between photographs and video of actual sexual assaults and rapes committed against real children as opposed to crudely drawn Xerox copied mini-comics made by outsider artists with audiences that might possibly number in the dozens.

Flenniken’s willingness to honestly recall the turbulent emotions of early adolescence resulted in stories and strips where prepubescent kids engage in activities and discussions that would be acutely problematic if done today.  Again, the utter lack of self-consciousness in Flenniken’s characters swerves her work away from the low grade smut ground out by many of her male contemporaries and flung open a window on how adolescent females perceived the world around them.

The stories are wildly transgressive, and like all transgressive art can only be understood in the context of their time and mores.  Flenniken’s art carries a sweetness that leavens out the most horrendous situations (she gets astonishing comedic mileage off a story about a woman raped by a police officer, never once blaming or exploiting the victim but lambasting the culture and mindset that makes such a crime possible).

The fact these stories are told from a vibrant feminist / sex positive point of view makes them relevant to this day, and Flenniken’s ability to draw both truth and humor from dysfunctional families, emotional abuse, and drug use keeps them from being one-note exercises.

Most importantly, Flenniken comes across as strongly pro-child, even while honestly depicting her own characters’ failings and misconceptions.

She always brings a genuine emotional connection with her characters as adolescents, neither glorifying nor patronizing them.

One of the most notorious Trots And Bonnie strips finds Bonnie looking at herself in a mirror, fantasizing she’s famous actresses of the past.*  

At the hands and brush of Norman Rockwell, this theme tries for poignant but lands in schmaltz, looking down on an anxious child studying her reflection in a mirror; in far too many bad novels by sub-par male writers, it’s borderline (and often not-so-borderline) pornography.

At the touch of Flenniken’s deft pen, it’s honest and sweet and shockingly frank but it never depicts Bonnie as a figment of the male imagination but as a character and personality all her own.

Flenniken has not done any new Trots And Bonnie strips since the last ones published in NatLamp in 1993.

To be honest, I think that’s a good thing.

The characters are of their particular time and cultural gestalt, it may not be possible to recapture that lightning in a new bottle, and rather than diminish the old, perhaps it best remains a perfect artefact of its era.

Mark Twain tried repeatedly but could never transport Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn out of antebellum Hannibal, and to use an example more contemporary to Flenniken’s work, the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers resolutely thwart all efforts to move them out of San Francisco during the Summer of Love.

You can’t go home again, as Thomas Wolfe famously observed, but that only applies if you’ve successfully left home.  At a certain point, if you haven’t moved beyond your old confines, you never will.

Flenniken’s honest frankness could have turned into a big crosshair on her back during the cultural wars, but to paraphrase John Lennon, life happened while she was making comix.

She married twice, divorced once, widowed the second time.  While she never completely withdrew from professional illustration, she no longer sought out the high profile gigs.

Trots And Bonnie from New York Review Comics is the first extensive English language compilation of her strips and stories, a very handsomely produced volume designed by Norman Hathaway.

The strips are meticulously presented, making it possible to enjoy Flenniken’s fine line work and exquisite character depictions in greater detail than every before.  It’s a genuine delight, sure to thrill old time fans of the original strip and quite likely to win a new generation of admirers.

But brace yourselves, noobs, this ain’t your grandma’s Betty Boop…

© Buzz Dixon

 *  It should be noted that for all its apparent revolutionary newness, the counterculture of the 1960s and 1970s, the crucible that forged Flenniken’s point of view, also enthusiastically embraced the past.  W. C. Fields and the Marx Brothers became cultural icons to a new generation, Betty Boop regained her old popularity, old movies were rediscovered and reimagined, African-American spirituals and blues sprang from new voices, obscure books and novels from earlier decades and centuries became the new cultural touchstones.

I’ve posted elsewhere on how the boomer generation enjoyed a unique conflation of new technology and old media to produce a brand new synthesis; there has been nothing like it since even with astonishing advances in technology.  When old media is rediscovered and reinterpreted in this era, it too often tends to be in the form of irony, which mocks that which it cannot understand.

Give those old hippies their due -- they got the &#@%ing point!

#Shary Flenniken #Trots And Bonnie #New York Review Comics #comics #underground comix #Air Pirates #National Lampoon #NatLamp #cartooning #counterculture #hippies #1960s #1970s

[illogicalconclusion]

This is a list of dystopian films. A dystopia (from the Greek δυσ- and τόπος, alternatively, cacotopia,[1]kakotopia, cackotopia, or anti-utopia) is an imaginary community or society, that is undesirable or frightening.[2][3] The literal translation, from its Greek origin into the English language, reads as "not-good place"; an antonym of utopia. Dystopian societies appear in many artistic works, most notably, in stories set in a future time-period. Dystopias are often characterized by dehumanization,[2]totalitarian governments, ruthless megacorporations, environmental disaster,[3] or other characteristics associated with a dramatic decline in society. Dystopian societies appear in many subgenres of fiction, oftentimes being used to draw attention to potential or real-world trends combined with societal issues. Examples of popular topics include: environmental, cultural, political, economical, religious, psychological, ethical, scientific, and technological issues; all of which, if left unaddressed, have the potential outcome of a dystopia. 

List

Things To Come 1936

1984 1956 A bureaucrat falls in love in a futuristic, totalitarian, surveillance state. Loosely based on George Orwell’s novel, Nineteen-Eighty-Four (1949).

Invasion of the Body Snatchers 1956 Based on the novel The Body Snatchers by Jack Finney, depicts an extraterrestrial invasion that begins in the fictional California town of Santa Mira. Dr. Miles Bennell and his friends discover vegetal cocoons that prove to be an alien race that duplicate human beings when they sleep.

The Time Machine 1960 Film adoption of H. G. Wells' novel The Time Machine (1895). Looking to test his time travel device, a scientist travels by mistake to 802701 AD to find a neo-primitive primitive world divided between two races: the pacific but totally insensitive Eloi, and the brutal and savage Morlocks, degenerate mutants who live in caves, raising Eloi as livestock for food.

The Last Man on Earth 1964 The first of three adaptations of Richard Matheson's 1954 novel I Am Legend. A scientist tries to survive in an apocalyptic world, where a global disease has turned humans in light-sensitive "vampires."

Planet of the Apes (original series) 1968—1973 Most of humanity is extinguished in a thermonuclear war. In the course of the two following millennia, intelligent apes (chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans) become the dominant species and establish an organized society. During the 40th century, an ultra-powerful nuclear bomb is launched as a last resort in a conflict between mutant humans and gorillas, ultimately destroying the entire planet.

A Clockwork Orange 1971 Adapted from Anthony Burgess' 1962 novella of the same name. In a future England overrun by violent gangs and ruled by an increasingly authoritarian government, a hoodlum gang leader is brainwashed into subservience as an experimental "cure" for criminality. 

The Omega Man 1971 The second of three adaptations of Richard Matheson's 1954 novel I Am Legend. In a world collapsed after a worldwide disease, Robert Neville is a scientist immune to the plague in permanent searching for a cure for the infected, turned in an religious cult of albino mutants named The Family and lead by demented Matthias, who is obsessed to destroy Neville and all trace of technology he believes blame of the world downfall.

Soylent Green 1973 Based on Harry Harrison's novel Make Room! Make Room! (1966). It centers around the issue of overpopulation.[53]

Logan's Run 1976 Depicts a dystopian future society set in 2274 in which population and the consumption of resources are managed by the simple notion of killing everyone who reaches the age of thirty.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers 1978 Remake of 1956 film, which is based on the novel The Body Snatchers by Jack Finney. A public health inspector realizes that an alien vegetal spores, that have arrived on the planet, are replicating human beings when they are asleep and consuming their original bodies to take over their lives. [54]

Mad Max 1979

Brave New World 1980

Escape from New York 1981 In 1997, when the US President crashes into Manhattan, now a giant maximum security prison, a convicted bank robber named Snake Plissken is sent in for a rescue. It extrapolates the crime and decay of inner cities.[53][10][28] 

Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior 1981

Scanners 1981

Blade Runner 1982

Nineteen Eighty-Four 1984 Based on George Orwell's 1949 novel of the same name.

The Terminator 1984 A waitress named Sarah Connor is saved from the Terminator T-800, a time-traveling android assassin, by Kyle Reese. He reveals to her that in the future the computer system Skynet will cause a nuclear war in order to allow machines to take over the world, and reveals that she will be the mother of the future resistance leader against the machines.

Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome 1985

RoboCop 1987 In 2043, Detroit is a city besieged by crime. Police officer Alex Murphy is killed by a criminals secretly supported by OCP's CEO Dick Jones, to increase delinquence in the city in order to approve a new police robot, ED-209. But the younger CEO Bob Morton chooses Murphy for a special project to revive as a superhuman cyborg law enforcer, Robocop. [12][104] 

The Running Man 1987 Loosely adapted from Stephen King's 1982 novel of the same name.

Steel Dawn 1987

They Live 1988 Adapted from Ray Nelson's play Eight O'Clock in the Morning. A man who finds a pair of sunglasses that shows the world as it really is, discovers that an alien race live disguised as human beings, putting subliminal messages in all kind of books and advertising posters to submit the human race.

Batman 1989 Based on the DC Comics character of the same name, directed by Tim Burton. Gotham City is a place overrun with disorder, where the reclusive billionaire Bruce Wayne fights crime as the masked vigilante Batman. Trying to stop a raid on Axis Chemicals, he unwittingly causes a gangster, Jack Napier, to fall into a tank of acid thereby causing his transformation into the demented Joker.

Total Recall 1990 Loosely based on Philip K. Dick's short story "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale" (1966). A jackhammer worker named Douglas Quaid that goes to a travel agency to be implanted with the false remember of a vacations in planet Mars discovers that all his life and his own identity could be another false remember.

Terminator 2: Judgment Day 1991 John Connor is a teenager who learns his true fate as future leader of the resistance against Skynet, when a reprogrammed T-800 is sent back in time to save him from the T-1000, a liquid metal model Terminator, sent back in time to kill him. 

Freejack 1992

Demolition Man 1993

The Stand 1994 Based on Stephen King's 1978 novel of the same name. A mega-virus wipes out most of humanity, and the few people who are immune congregate to try and form a new society. [114] 

12 Monkeys 1995 A convict is sent back in time to gather information about a virus responsible for wiping out most of the human population. Based on Chris Marker's short film, La Jetée (1962).

Ghost in the Shell 1995 Based on the 1989 manga by Masamune Shirow of the same name, follows the hunt by the public-security agency Section 9 for a mysterious hacker known as the Puppet Master.

Judge Dredd 1995

Strange Days 1995

Tank Girl 1995

Waterworld 1995 Massive ice caps have melted, and most of Earth's land became submerged. The few surviving humans, who live in big ships and artificial atolls, are poor and ignorant since they have lost most of their resources, as well as their technological and historical knowledge.  

Escape from L.A. 1996 Sequel to the 1981 film, Escape from New York. In 2013, Snake Plissken is sent to the turned-in-island Los Angeles after The Big One earthquake to rescue The President's daughter, kidnapped by the revolutionary group Shining Path lead by Cuervo Jones that it rules Los Angeles.

The Fifth Element 1997

Dark City 1998

Pleasantville 1998

The Matrix 1999 A computer hacker learns from mysterious rebels about the true nature of his reality and his role in the war against its controllers.

Equilibrium 2002 In a totalitarian future where all forms of feeling are illegal and citizens are required to take daily drug-injections to suppress emotion and encourage obedience, a man in charge of enforcing the law rises to overthrow the system.

Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones 2002 Master Jedi Obi-Wan Kenobi and his young apprentice Anakin Skywalker, must protect Senator Padmé Amidala from being killed by a faction of galactic separatists, led by the former Jedi Count Dooku. [153] 

The Time Machine 2002 Remake of the 1960 movie. Alexander Hartdegen (Guy Pearce) is a 1899 scientist who soon after his marriage to his girlfriend Emma, (Sienna Guillory) she dies in an accident. Attempting to fix it, Hartdegen builds a time machine for travelling to the future, hoping to find the way to correct his own past. However, at 2037 a mining operation in a lunar colony alters the moon's orbit for destroying it, causing a great shock on Earth and he's accidentally impulsed on time to 802701 AD, finding a restored nature world with any trace of the previous human cities and technology. Inhabited by a pacific tribe named Eloi, who live ignoring their former world, his attempts to learn them about the past ends when he discovers the existence of a savage and brutal underground race, Morlocks, who live hunting Eloi to survive. [194][195] 

The Animatrix 2003 Movie shorts set in The Matrix's universe.

The Matrix Reloaded 2003 Neo, Trinity and Morpheus looking for a man named Keymaker, who is property of a powerful Matrix's program called Merovingian, to discover the origin of The Matrix and the way to win the war against the machines, while the former Agent Smith has resurrected and he lives obsessed to kill Neo again. [10] 

The Matrix Revolutions 2003 Neo, Trinity and Morpheus try to save Zion from The Matrix, that it launched a mass invasion of machines against the underground city to annihilate all human being, while Neo must face to an out-of-control Agent Smith, who is duplicating himself in any other people in his attempt to conquer The Matrix. [10] 

Terminator 3 2003 An adult John Connor lives as a transient worker, when he meets by chance a former friend, vet Kate Brewster. When a second T-800 is sent back in time to protect them from T-X, a new model of Terminator sent to kill not only John Connor, but all of Connor's deputies in the war against Skynet.

I, Robot 2004 Adapted from the I, Robot series by Isaac Asimov. An A.I. creates a potential dystopian future by logically applying the Zeroth Law of Robotics but is stopped.

The Island 2005 A man goes on the run after he discovers that he is actually a "harvestable being", and is being kept as a source of replacement parts, along with others, in a facility. [119][120] 

Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith 2005 Anakin Skywalker is seduced to the Dark Side of the Force by Supreme Chancellor Palpatine, turning him into Sith Lord, Darth Vader. With the help of Vader, Palpatine (a.k.a. Darth Sidious) destroys most of the Jedi Order, and ushers in the age of the Galactic Empire.

V for Vendetta 2006

I Am Legend 2007 The third adaptation of Richard Matheson's 1954 novel I Am Legend.

Sleep Dealer 2008 A fortified wall has ended unauthorized Mexico-US immigration, but migrant workers are replaced by robots, remotely controlled by the same class of would-be emigrants. Their life force is inevitably used up, and they are discarded without medical compensation.

WALL-E 2008 Centuries in the future, Earth had become toxic due to the extreme amounts of waste produced by a megacorporation, which also endorsed consumerism and technological dependency.

Daybreakers 2009 In the year 2019, a plague has transformed almost every human into vampires. Faced with a dwindling blood supply, the fractured dominant race plots their survival.

The Road 2009 Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning 2006 novel of the same name by Cormac McCarthy. A man and his young son struggle to survive after a global cataclysm has caused an extinction event. They scavenge for supplies and avoid roaming gangs as they travel on a road to the coast in the hope it will be warmer. [10][28][114] 

Terminator Salvation 2009 In a world consumed by a nuclear holocaust, an adult John Connor (who leads the war against machines) is looking for a young Kyle Reese among the Terminators' prisoners so that someday Reese can travel back in time and meet his mother, Sarah Connor.

The Book of Eli 2010 A post-apocalyptic tale, in which a lone man fights his way across America, in order to protect a sacred book that holds the secrets to saving humankind. 

Planet of the Apes (reboot series) 2011—present A colony of apes in a sanctuary is affected by a viral gas which enhances their intelligence. As a result, they flee the sanctuary and form an organized society apart from humans. Ten years later, that same virus causes a massive pandemic disease called the Simian flu, which ultimately wipes out all humans with the exception of those genetically immune to the virus. A group of immune human survivors form a colony and eventually engage in a war with the apes.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes 2011 Will Rodman, a scientist at the San Francisco biotech company Gen-Sys, is testing the viral-based drug ALZ-112 on chimpanzees to find a cure for Alzheimer's disease. ALZ-112 is given to a chimp named Bright Eyes, greatly increasing her intelligence. But then, during Will's presentation for the drug, Bright Eyes is forced from her cage, goes on a rampage, and is shot to death. Will's boss Steven Jacobs terminates the project and has the chimps slaughtered. However, Will's assistant Robert Franklin discovers that the reason for Bright Eyes' rampage was that she had recently given birth to an infant chimp. Will reluctantly agrees to take in the chimp, who is named Caesar. Will learns that Caesar has inherited his mother's intelligence and decides to raise him. Three years later, Will introduces Caesar to the redwood forest at Muir Woods National Monument. Meanwhile, Will treats his dementia-suffering father Charles with ALZ-112, which seems to restore his cognitive ability.

Cloud Atlas 2012 Adapted from the 2004 novel of the same name by David Mitchell. Set across six different eras (1849, 1936, 1973, 2012, 2144 and 2321), the movie tells the story of a group of souls crossing each other's paths along different incarnations, and how it changes the world accordingly as time passes. [24][50][51] 

Dredd 2012

The Hunger Games 2012 Directed by Gary Ross, based on Suzanne Collins' novel of the same name. Katniss Everdeen voluntarily takes her younger sister's place in the Hunger Games, a televised fight to the death in which two teenagers from each of the twelve Districts of Panem are chosen at random to compete.

Total Recall 2012 Remake of the 1990 film of the same name. In need of a vacation from his ordinary life, factory worker Douglas Quaid (Colin Farrell) visits Rekall, a company that can turn dreams into real memories. Thinking that memories of life as a superspy are just the ticket, Quaid undergoes the procedure -- but it goes horribly wrong. Suddenly, Quaid is a hunted man. He teams up with a rebel fighter (Jessica Biel) on a search to find the head of the underground resistance and take down the leader (Bryan Cranston) of the free world. [24][196][197][198] 

Elysium 2013

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire 2013 Directed by Francis Lawrence, based on Suzanne Collins' Catching Fire. [10][24]

Oblivion 2013 Based on Joseph Kosinski's unpublished graphic novel of the same name.

The Purge 2013 In a futuristic world where America is plagued by crime, the government sanctions a 12-hour period once a year in which all criminal activity is legal. The Sandin family is in danger after their younger son Charlie saves a stranger, only to be killed just before he got close to the house, causing the killers to surround it to get into the home and kill everybody.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes 2014 Ten years after the pandemic of the deadly ALZ-113 virus, or Simian Flu, the worldwide human population has been drastically reduced, with only about one in five hundred genetically immune to the virus. Apes, with genetically enhanced intelligence caused by the same virus, have started to build a civilization of their own. Caesar is the chimpanzee leader of an ape colony in the Muir Woods near San Francisco. Caesar's son Blue Eyes and his friend Ash encounter a man named Carver in the woods, who panics and shoots Ash, wounding him. Carver's party, led by Malcolm, arrive while a number of apes join Blue Eyes and Ash. Caesar orders the humans to leave, and they flee to their community in San Francisco, centered around "the tower", a partially finished skyscraper. Prompted by Koba, a scarred bonobo who holds a grudge against humans for experimental mistreatment. [66] 

Divergent 2014 Based on the adaption of Veronica Roth's novels of the same names.

The Giver 2014 Based on the 1983 dystopian novel of the same name

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 2014

The Purge: Anarchy 2014 During the 12-hour period once a year in which all criminal activity is legal, LAPD Sargeant Leo Barnes is looking for revenge after the death of his son, at the same time that the married couple formed by Shane and Liz are trapped in the streets to be killed by urban biker gangs and that a man named Carmelo Johns leads a revolution against The Purge. [24][157] 

RoboCop 2014 Remake of the 1987 film of the same name. In a 2028 where there are police robots in entire world but the United States, Alex Murphy is a police officer killed in the line of duty. The company Omnicorp, trying to validate a law to approve the use of police robots in the country (with it as prime supplier), saves the Murphy's brain and face to fuse with a robotic body, creating a cyborg named Robocop.

Transcendence 2014

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2 2015 The Lobster 2015 Somewhere in the near future, single people face a choice: join a program to find a mate in forty-five days or be transformed into an animal. [133] 

Mad Max: Fury Road 2015

The Purge: Election Year 2016

Blade Runner 2049 2017 Sequel to Blade Runner

What Happened to Monday 2017 Circa 2043, overpopulation has led to a strict one-child policy where all but a mother's eldest child are put into cryosleep. [202] 

The First Purge 2018 Fourth installment of The Purge's franchise and a prequel focused in the New Founding Fathers of America, a totalitarian politic party that after take the power in USA make an experiment in Staten Island where for a span of 12 hours all kind of misdemeanor and crime (murder, rape, arson, and anarchy) will be legal.

#film

[eirabach]

Hazy Days

This is absolute utter nonsense, following on from the idea of Alan getting messed with on his 18th, written to cheer myself up. Hope it cheers some of you guys up too. Going out to @onereyofstarlight for the inspro <3

Gordon hovers at the threshold of the lounge, hiding behind the door frame as he listens to the sound of furniture scraping across the floor and the dull thud of wood against wood.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” someone says, voice low and urgent.

“It’s tradition,” comes the reply. 

“That isn’t what I asked though, is it.”

“You thought it was fun when we got Virg with the --”

“Hey! We promised never to speak of it!”

“Yeah yeah, come on hurry up, he’s gonna be in any minute --”

There’s another bang, and the sound of something heavy coming to rest. Then, a long, suspicious silence. Gordon knows a lot about suspicious silences. Enough that he ought to know better than to investigate them.

He doesn’t though, so there’s that.

Scott is sat behind their father’s desk, which is -- not as weird as it used to be, exactly, but still just odd enough to draw Gordon’s attention. To draw him out. It is possible Scott is relying on this, of course. It is equally possible that it works.

“Ah, Gordon!” Scott says, like he hasn’t just been eating egg sandwiches with him twenty minutes ago, like he’s the CEO of an international company and Gordon’s the intern whose name Scott’s got down on a prompter. “Join us?”

Scott is the CEO of an international company, and okay Gordon isn’t the intern, exactly, but he’s compelled to obey nonetheless. He approaches the desk gingerly, noting the way Scott’s got his fingers pressed together, the absence of paperwork.

“Whatever this is, I don’t like it.”

“Why, what do you think this is?”

Gordon hesitates, eyes flicking from Scott to the two brothers sat either side of him. Virgil is wearing that face -- the this is for your own good face -- that Gordon’s long since learnt to associate with things he’d really really rather not experience. Decompression trials. Particle physics lectures. Grandma’s vindaloo. John looks -- well, John looks like John. Cool, collected, clearly wishing with every bone in his body that he was anywhere else. Gordon’s always liked that about John, the predictability. Now it only serves to solidify the queasy sort of feeling in his chest into what could best be described as dread.

“An -- intervention?”

A muscle twitches in Virgil’s jaw. John huffs, his fingernails tap tap tapping against the plexiglass screen of the tab in front of him. Scott lifts one eyebrow, leans forward, and lowers his voice.

“Do you require an intervention?”

“Are you asking?”

Scott beams at him, a full, shit-eating grin; Gordon takes three solid steps back. 

“I’m sorry,” he says, and it sounds genuine enough but that grin is nothing but unnerving. “That we missed your birthday.”

Ah. Well.

It’s not like it could be helped, the timing. It’s not like that guy capsized his yacht on purpose. Or the planet decided to shift its plates just to fuck with him. Or the ISS crapped out on its orbit just because it happened to be Gordon Tracy’s birthday.

His eighteenth birthday, not that he’s counting. Not that anyone had been counting. Even Grandma’s cake had been a -- thankfully -- minuscule affair, topped with shop bought fondant and a single candle that he’d blown out with the last puff of exhaustion at midnight.

Make a wish, Gordon. Right. Like he doesn’t do that hourly.

Still, it was better than last year. Last year he’d spent it at the bottom of the ocean, tucked up tight in his ‘bird. Not because he had to, not because there was any one to save, but because -- because there hadn’t been. He’d been desperate for distraction, then. For anything to take his mind off the constant sickening ache of remembering and missing and knowing that this is what every birthday would be like, now. Forever. 

Orphan. 

Last year had been, frankly, shit. 

“Noted, and as you should be,” Gordon says, and narrows his eyes. “So what, you’re gonna make it up to me?”

Scott sits back in their dad’s chair, arms behind his head and grins. “Yeah.”

This is -- not reassuring.

“Where’s Alan?”

Virgil moves, cracking his neck as he stretches, and Gordon winces because he’s seen the footage from that ‘quake. His brother has gotta be feeling it.

“Gordon, you’re eighteen now,” he says, perfectly solemn, and Scott’s expression tries to rearrange itself into something a little less -- worrying. John rolls his eyes. “That makes you -- “ a long pause, all dramatic effect, “a man.”

“Oh God.”

“And when you’re a man --” From the drawer of dad’s desk appears an item that Gordon would prefer to never, ever, ever consider his father having any use of. At all. 

He probably didn’t. 

There are five of them.

“Oh God, oh God, Jesus, anyone, don’t.”

“You see, Gordy,” says Scott, tipping the contents of the box onto the desk with the sort of glee Gordon hasn’t seen from him in at least eighteen months. “When a man loves a --”

“Scott I will pay you not to finish that sentence.”

“With what, my money?”

“Scott!”

“All right, all right,” Scott actually laughs, then, hands raised in surrender. “You win. Virgil, finish the sentence.”

“That isn’t what I --”

“Gordon,” Virgil says, and what the -- he’s holding a banana. Why is he holding a banana. Why isn’t the ground opening up and swallowing Gordon whole? “As your brothers --”

Scott cuts in. “Your older, responsible, brothers.” 

“We feel it’s important to talk to you about --” another dramatic pause, there was always too much theatre kid in Virgil, “safety.”

Gordon can’t really back much further away, not without either actually running for it or tripping over the back of the sofa and concussing himself. He considers it anyway, but instead settles for  throwing his hands up in front of him.

“No. Nuh-uh. No way. I have had this little chat. I went to school. I spent two and a half years living in dorms with eighty five really really fit people, okay? I know.” He turns, desperately, to the only other person who could possibly hate this conversation more than he does. “Johnny, tell them!”

John pushes a little foil packet towards him with the same delicacy Virgil would use to defuse a bomb. Gordon stares at him.

“Don’t look at me,” John says, dropping the tab down beside it, “I don’t want to be here anymore than you do.”

“Then why,” Gordon hisses, “are you here?”

John blinks at him, then nods to the tab. “Schematics.”

That does it, he bolts, fingers in his ears and shirt flapping behind him as he practically throws himself out of the villa and down towards the beach. Scott sighs happily, rubbing his hands together before pocketing all but one of the condoms. This he offers to Virgil, who declines with a wave. John plucks the banana from Virgil’s hand and peels it before lifting it in salute toward Gordon’s rapidly disappearing form.

“To adulthood,” John intones. “And all its many --” his nose wrinkles momentarily “challenges.”

Virgil scoffs, but Scott smiles. 

“Godspeed, kid,” he says, soft as can be. “Godspeed.”

#thunderbirds are go #gordon tracy #scott tracy #brotherly hazing rituals #it's a theme #clare vs writers block #sheer nonsense