#now if we DO get those scenes of neil and jean making out i will faint fr because i just can't imagine neil doing that but | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

percontaion-points · 3 years

Text

Raven King chapter 6

Click to see the rest of the snark & image descriptions.

Chapter 6

Nicky was bringing Jim from his improv class...

I thought Nicky had a long-term boyfriend?

Well, if he did, he probably doesn't anymore. Not with all of Nicky's jokes about cheating and him taking some rando to the big dinner.

Blackwell was slow to appear in the distance, but it didn't take long to spot the two stadiums. The football and Exy stadium were on opposite sides of the campus like massive bookends.

I'm still having a really difficult time swallowing that society completely shifted because of a sport invented some 30 years earlier.

Like I'm willing to overlook a lot for the sake of a story. But for society to just go completely and utterly apeshit over a 30 year old sport makes zero sense. AND I READ THE STORY WHERE THE LADY HAD SEX WITH THE LITERAL BULL.

Wymack pulled a bottle of vodka out of the bag and put it down beside Kevin. "You have ten seconds to inhale as much of this as you can. I'm timing you. Go."

It was alarming how much a man could drink when he needed an emotional crutch.

WOW THAT'S SUPER FUCKING HEALTHY.

Like I get that his foster-father and brother abused the shit out of him. But therapy is much better than alcoholism.

Madison was using the home locker room to change right now, so the Foxes had to go all the way around to the away side.

I really love how there's this big fancy banquet dinner where they invite all of the college exy teams, and they literally have to change in the locker room.

My high school did this band banquet, too. But we didn't have to fucking eat dinner out on the football field with our parents... We had the school cafeteria for the evening.

Out of touch author can't even think of a world where these idiots would want to rent a banquet hall. Oh no... it's got to be at the fucking stadium, for some unholy reason.

Judging by Neil's quick headcount, the Ravens hadn't brought dates. They hadn't brought any color along, either. All twenty-two of them were dressed head-to-toe in black. The twenty men wore the same shirts and slacks, and the two women wore identical dresses. They even sat the exact same way, all with their right elbows on the table, all of them with their chins in their hands. Another team might look foolish going so far, but somehow the Ravens looked imposing.

I joke about the fox characters outside of Neil, Kevin, and Andrew being cardboard cut-outs... but this ain't got nothing on those cardboard cutouts.

"I know who you are," Riko said. "Who here doesn't? You're the woman who captains a Class I team. You've done admittedly well despite your disadvantages."

CASUAL SEXISM.

The man to Riko's right stood up as soon as the Foxes were settled and walked behind the Ravens until he was across from Neil. Two fingers to the woman's shoulder got her out of her chair and she moved to the newly-emptied seat. The stranger sat across from Neil. As he did the Ravens fell out of their frozen poses, but they did so only to lean back as one in their chairs.

Did they practice this ahead of time?

The black three tattooed on his left cheekbone meant he could be no one but Jean Moreau.

Imagine getting a tattoo of a college sports number. Of which you would only get to play for a few years before being forced out.

It took him only a few seconds to realize the Ravens were coming. The entire team was crossing the court toward Kevin, walking in V formation like a flock of birds going south.

I can't with her descriptions of the Ravens. Like one team's colors are orange and white, and the other is black and red. ONE OF THEM IS GUD AND THE OTHER IS EBUL. THE RAVENS ARE EBUL, AND THEY'RE ALL HENCHMEN ROBOTS.

"We're sure it is," the Raven striker said, "seeing how you're dating a prostitute."

"Stripper," Dan corrected...

[…]

Neil tried not to stare at her. He would have dismissed the Raven's insult as an outright lie if not for Dan's easy response. Too late he remembered her telling him she'd worked an overnight job during high school to make ends meet.

THE AUTHOR DOES REALIZE THAT YOU HAVE TO BE 18 TO WORK JOBS LIKE THAT... RIGHT?! Like please tell me that the author didn't write about a 15 year old getting a job as a stripper.

This series is bad enough without needing to drag child strippers into the mix.

The others fell asleep within a few miles, but Neil spent the entire ride thinking about Riko and his father.

Chapter 6 summary: So it's time for the banquet. They do a random lottery draw where they decide which school will host the banquet this year. The school picked is only about four hours away. The banquet itself lasts for two days, in order to justify some of the travel time for those further away. However, the foxes are of the opinion “fuck that; we're not staying the entire two days”.

As they get closer to the school, Kevin starts to have a panic attack. As the others leave the bus, David gives Kevin some alcohol, and tells him to chug it. Which... yeah, that sounds fucking healthy. They have to change out in the locker room, which is fucking weird if you ask me. And then they go into the stadium, which has been turned into a banquet hall. The sight makes Neil angry, and mood. Rent a fucking banquet hall for this, assholes.

They're upset to see that the foxes are randomly supposed to be sitting across from the ravens. And the ravens are all dressed like evil henchmen, and are even randomly acting in unison. Talk about zero personality. David warned the others not to pick a fight, but obviously wasn't counting on Riko bringing his planet-sized ego with him. A rando Raven player named Jean-- who is the embodiment of every French stereotype you can think of-- starts to antagonize Neil, and calls him by a bunch of Neil's former names. He then moves on and starts insulting everybody else.

Their little pissing match goes on for a long while. But hey, it's not like anything else is going on, so this might as well happen, I guess. Finally, Riko antagonizes Neil into speaking, and Neil calls Riko out on his shit, saying that he's a whiny, entitled little brat who doesn't have anything going for him. Then, Jean and Riko start to act like they “own” Neil, which has fucking creepy slavery undertones to what they're saying.

David finally shows up to say that they're trying to move the foxes to another table. As they get up to leave, Jean can't help but name-drop Neil's father. The others rally around Kevin and Neil once they're away. Kevin is sent back to the bus to drink some more liquor, and Neil thinks about following. Not only that, but just fucking leaving. But he doesn't, because then this series would be put out of its misery.

After dinner, then they put all of the tables away and everybody starts socializing and networking. The ravens come over, act like they've never met the foxes before, but then continue to insult them. I'm really fucking over this. Riko's uncle and the raven coach comes over. The two teams awkwardly stare at one another, and the only thing this scene needs is some dramatic finger snapping. Tetsuji says that he ran fingerprint test off of a glass Neil drank out of back during that dumb morning talk show, and knows who he is. He yells at Neil about crimes that Neil's dad committed against The Family©, as if Neil himself personally did all of that. However, Neil stands his ground and refuses to be bullied by these assholes.

Matt finally drags Neil away, and threatens to tell the exy board about Riko's shit behavior and have him benched for the rest of the season. They all go back to the bus finally, and start to head home.

10 notes · View notes

jemej3m · 4 years

Note

Right but what if in married to the enemy non of them recognize Neil and just think of him as Andrews husband which leads to increasingly comedic Dramatic Irony(TM) scenes like Neil would be stopping by to drop something and some perp is like “hey isn’t that nath-“ *cue Andrew ‘accidentally’ shoving him* like idk I know you’re done with that fic but I just read it and I can’t stop thinking about how funny that would be

bruh

stop bringing things back from the dead yall

(FINALLY some WRITING and not just asks - im so sorry ive been starving you all)

“Andrew!” Detective Jeremy Knox bounced on the balls of his feet. “I’m so thrilled to have you here. Kevin Day has spoken...” his smile nearly slipped. “Highly! Of you.”

“Here’s the file,” Andrew grunted, dropping the thick yellow slip onto the detective’s desk. “You need to get rid of them before they settle in. Once they’ve grown roots you’ll never get rid of them till they decide to move again.”

“I know,” Jeremy said, voice slightly hushed. “We’ll bring justice to your Baltimore victims. This won’t be swept under the rug.”

Andrew just stared at the file. He’d worked on that ring for three years now, but they’d upped and vanished. When they’d reappeared in Captain Rhenmann’ s New York precinct, Kevin had booted him up there to get a resolution.

It also, coincidently, was the exact week Neil was due up in New York to finalise his ‘retirement’. Andrew may or may not have arranged for him to be in New York for Neil’s support whilst he finally wriggled out of the Moriyama’s grasp.

Finally, after a decade and a half together, Neil would be free. Baltimore would no longer require a Butcher to instil terror. Neil had worked hard to free their city from Ichirou Moriyama’s grasp, buying both himself and his jurisdiction out of internment.

And once Neil was free, they could finally bring down the Moriyamas. Together.

Andrew wasn’t in a rush. Slow and steady always won the race: he would bring down the criminal empire that had trapped his husband for so long and marred his skin and mind with memories of terror and injustice. And he would enjoy it.

“Would you like to have lunch with us?” Knox gestured to the two women, standing close enough to eavesdrop but pretending they weren’t. They were married, Andrew guessed. It was pretty obvious. “We were just about to head out. There’s a hidden bodega near the the station with pastrami that’s to die for.”

Andrew checked his phone. No messages from Neil, as of yet. He’d text when he was on his way back to the hotel, and there was no use in Andrew hanging around and anxious awaiting his arrival. He’d convince himself that the Moriyamas had finally put a bullet through Neil’s forehead and go rampaging.

“Fine,” he grunted, shoving the phone back into his pocket.

Detective Sunshine just beamed.

“Day mentioned you were married,” Alvarez said, swallowing a mouthful of sub. “Who’s the lucky guy?”

Andrew arched his eyebrow, unimpressed. She rolled her eyes.

“You’ve got him as your home screen. It’s not hard to guess. You out at your precinct?” Andrew nodded. “Yeah, so are we.”

“If we didn’t have Captain Rhenmann, I’m sure it’d be a lot more stressful.” Laila added, rubbing her wife’s shoulder. “He speaks very highly of your captain, you know. I think they worked together with the old NYPD commissioner. Kayleigh Day.”

Yes, Kevin’s mother. The one who was murdered twenty years ago. A riveting case. Still unsolved. Neil was pretty sure it was his father who’d been assigned to her removal. Not that Andrew would ever discuss this aloud.

“I heard she was one hell of a woman,” Knox added. “If her son’s anything to go off, I can see why.”

“Stop gushing about Kevin,” Alvarez chided.

“Don’t worry,” Andrew grunted. “Kevin’s undoubtedly worse.”

The three of them laughed. They ate in companionable silence, Knox and Alvarez occasionally jostling each other or gossiping about names Andrew didn’t know. It was nearing 2 o’clock in the afternoon when the detective’s phone buzzed: he leaned over, checked who it was from and immediately scrambled to pick it up.

Knox squinted at the message and shot the three of them an apologetic look. “My bad. I’ve gotta make a call. I’ll meet y’all back at the station?”

He left without an answer, phone raised to his ear.

“He’s a parole officer for a very specific case,” Alvarez explained. Laila was frowning. “A difficult one, at that.”

“Seems a little more involved than a parole officer usually is,” Andrew noted.

“Yes, well,” Laila huffed. “Jeremy likes to care.”

Andrew got a text of his own. Coming back now.

He bid the women goodbye with a salute and bought a sandwich for Neil: he was unlikely to have already fed himself, too stressed and paranoid to bother thinking about food. He always came back from New York weak and underfed.

When Andrew arrived back to their hotel room, Neil was lying on his back, staring at the ceiling. His shirt was untucked and tie loosened, but he hadn’t even bothered to take his shoes off or put away the briefcase of paperwork and knives.

Andrew put the food aside for later and sat by his husband, toeing off his shoes so he could cross his legs on the bed.

When Neil didn’t talk, he leaned over and turned on the television. A random afternoon sitcom filled the room with white noise, bringing Neil out of his glacial stare. Finally, his eyes flit over to Andrew, aware but still hollow.

Andrew reached out to undo Neil’s cuffs but waited for him to deposit his wrist in Andrew’s palm. He got to work, unbuttoning the sleeves, pulling off the tie and throwing the shoes over to the door. The dress shirt was wriggled off, leaving him in just a white undershirt, and draped across the chair to be steam-ironed in the morning. Neil wormed out of his slacks, too, letting Andrew fold them and put them away.

Andrew made him a cup of decaf instant coffee and brought out the sandwich. Neil looked at both of them balefully but sat up anyway, getting through the whole coffee and only half the sandwich.

Andrew waited, sitting behind him. When he was finished he laid back down, putting his head in Andrew’s lap.

“Thank you,” he mumbled.

Andrew just hummed, combing his fingers through Neil’s hair.

The end of the week came quickly. Andrew worked the case with Knox and eventually decided that the case would be in good hands. Every evening he’d come back to find Neil just as exhausted and spaced out and hold him together with soft hands and silent reassurance. Neil soldiered on.

Andrew didn’t know what he was negotiating, why it was taking so long or whether or not this would actually work. All he could hope for was that Neil would be a free man by the end of the week and that they could go home without worrying he’d be called back or killed.

Andrew got his answer on Friday evening. He bid the affectionately named ‘Dyke Detectives’ and their captain goodbye, knowing Knox had briefly left the building for an errand and assuming that they’d pass on his thanks.

He exited the front doors of the precinct and nearly stumbled into his husband, standing in jeans and a hoodie with a blinding grin. Andrew never forgot how gorgeous Neil was, but the ease of his posture and the genuine smile had something go soft inside his chest.

He ignored all the beat cops standing around the doors and pressed a kiss to Neil’s smile, which only had him smile more.

“It’s done,” Neil murmured, holding Andrew’s wrist. “I’m free. We’re free.’’

“Took you long enough.”

Neil shrugged. “Had to barter for Allison, too. I know Renee wants to make it official.”

“Only a decade later,” Andrew agreed. Of course Neil hadn’t been fighting tooth and nail for himself: he’d do anything for those he loved.

“Holy shit,” came an unfamiliar voice. They both turned around, spotting a willowing man standing next to Detective Knox. His pale complexion had turned translucent, all the blood draining out of his cheeks. Neil’s eyes flashed with recognition. “Nathaniel—?”

“It’s Neil,” Neil said, still smiling. “Hello, Jean. Good to see you were cleared. Did they find Riko’s actual killer?”

The man did not look any less uncomfortable. “They ruled it a suicide.”

“Ah, shame. Maybe some more evidence will come to light, later.” He offered his hand to Andrew. “Shall we?”

It would be a long drive to Baltimore but at the other end was home, two cats and freedom.

Andrew, older, wiser, calmer, happier, took Neil’s hand.

“We shall.”

#mobster/cop au #butcher!neil #cop!andrew #aftg #andreil #neil josten #andrew minyard #jeremy knox #sara alvarez #jean moreau #laila dermott #hey look i killed riko again #cw: suicide mention #cw: human trafficking mention #cw: homicide mention #cw: andrew being too good of a husband #tfc #ik its not funny but it worked super well so like #ur welcome? i guess

218 notes · View notes

hargrove-mayfields · 3 years

Note

Autistic max? I’m all in -🦖

yes!! Max being on the spectrum is one of my favorite headcanons! Here’s a bit of my thoughts and hcs for you anon! <3

okay so first i wanna talk a little about where this hc came from! this idea was born in my head for a multitude of reasons, but the general summary is this:

-she misses a lot of social+emotional cues! she didn’t pick up on just how annoyed Mike was with her in the gym and kept pushing until El intervened, she didn’t detect any of Lucas’ panic or frustration when he was explaining the upside down to her until he touches her, and when el is jealous and just not interested in meeting her, she seems to be completely unfazed by that until she walks away. also every scene she has with Billy, he’s very shut off and she seems to be confused about what she’s expected to say, missing that he’s angry until he’s lashing out, and idk to me it just seems like she doesn’t really have a grasp on understanding others’ emotions!

-similarly, she only seems to react in the face of immediate danger, as if she’s a lot of the time unaware of how bad things truly are around her. like when she’s helping to find dart without even knowing what’s going on, driving a whole muscle car and going down into the tunnels without a hint of fear, seeming barely concerned when the mindflayer was about to drop through the ceiling. it’s almost like she has trouble fully processing the consequences of certain things, which could also explain why she sneaks out even though she probably knows what Neil is like and the fact that it could potentially put her in danger.

-the way she dresses just screams tactile sensitivity! she doesn’t ever wear anything flowy, any scratchy materials, and even at the snowball, where we see Susan fussing over her, she’s still dressed for comfort. what young girl with a mother clearly interested in making her pretty is going to get away with wearing jeans to a school dance if she doesn’t have sensory issues?

-also, whenever she gets upset she seems to shut down. like she almost never talks to Billy after he yells at her unless it’s necessary, when her and Lucas are talking on top of the bus it definitely seems like she’s struggling to voice her feelings or put words to her emotions, when Billy’s in the sauna, after he’s activated she starts turning in on herself, and after his death she’s just sitting in his room. like maybe she doesn’t really understand her own emotions that well either.

I’m not really viewing any of this as like, solid evidence or anything btw, these are just some things I’ve noticed about her as an autistic girl her age and living in a very similar situation that I think are neat and relatable!

onto the stuff I literally made up because I love her!

-Susan gives me autism mommy vibes. Like, making it her identity that she has a child with autism, and at times that can get super frustrating for Max because she hates being her mom’s little trophy daughter, gossiped about at all the potlucks so people feel sorry for her. Her absolute least favorite thing is “She’s such a handful.” and when Susan pulls the I’m so lonely because of taking care of you card to make her feel bad. Especially because she doesn’t feel very taken care of, once she’d hit a certain age her mother decided she’d be alright without all that “kid stuff” and basically tossed her into the world on her on. (hence why she’s Billys responsibility)

-In the 80s (and still now if we’re being entirely honest) it was very normal to just throw a casual r slur into conversation and it kills Max every time her friends say it, especially Mike because she thinks he’s being mean and doesn’t like her. She doesn’t know how to explain to them that that hurts her feelings because she doesn’t even know how to bring it up that she’s autistic. Billy tells her once to try to cheer her up that he could beat them up for her but she cries even harder because that’s what she doesn’t want, is for them to think she’s overreacting. He feels bad and tries to make up for it bringing it up with some of the moms of the group and asking that they tell their kids to stop using that word ever.

-In California she was in special ed classes, but Hawkins Middle deems that not necessary for someone of her “functioning level” (yuck) and she gets landed in coed instead. It might’ve been alright if that was how she started her education, but she was already used to classes of four or five kids like her, and she just cannot learn in that new environment. So she does really, really bad in school her first year in Hawkins. She feels kind of self conscious around her friends because they’re all so smart and her grades make her feel stupid even though it’s not her fault, and that’s why she kinda drifts towards being close with El because she struggles with learning things too.

-Smells are probably her worst overstimulation triggers. Things like cigarette smoke, fresh brewed coffee, her moms perfume, cooking and baking smells, the automatic air freshener thing, candles. Pretty much anything stronger than the smell of water is just overwhelming for her, especially if there’s something else already working her up, because then a whiff of something too strong can put her straight into a meltdown. Billy decides to quit smoking for her (he’ll never admit that, he’s adamant that it was because it was messing with his lung capacity and he’s trying to work out) and he also does things like buy Susan a new, less offensive perfume for her birthday and open windows to get stuffy air out of the house. They never really talk about what that does for her but like, that’s part of how they start getting closer, is when he starts making little accommodations for her like that.

-In addition to smells, there are very specific sounds she can’t stand. It’s not all loud noises, some of them like the rev of Billy’s car or a bass guitar at an outdoor amphitheater are some of her favorites, but the ones she doesn’t like, she really hates. Things like styrofoam, dishes hitting off of each other, something scratching against ice that builds up in the freezer, TV static, the toaster popping up or the oven beeping, and people who can’t chew with their mouths closed (looking at you Billy, keep that gum in your mouth please) all make her feel gross. She’ll try to physically shake off the way those sounds make her feel but sometimes they’re just too much and she shuts down for a while until she gets to hear something else. In that case usually really quiet music or someone talking to her quietly can reel her back in.

-Her interests vary a lot! The longest she’s ever held one special interest was a Miss Piggy phase! Susan liked that she was showing interest in a feminine character because of a lot of her si’s were tomboyish, but Max liked Piggy because she knew karate and punched people who laughed at her or tried to make her feel bad about herself! She has all sorts of Piggy collectibles, like toys, bed sheets, posters, books, mugs and watches! Otherwise her interests and fixations tend to come and go pretty quickly, like one week she could want to know everything there is to know about pro skaters, and the next she’s into the history of circuses! She liked cars for a little while and Billy was really excited to indulge in that and let her get familiar with the camaro, but she shifted to video games pretty soon after and he had to let it drop.

-Another interest that’s also pretty constant for her is nature! Not only for the sensory experience of it, listening to leaves rustle and birds chirp and water rush, but also all the knowledge about it. She can identify any type of flower, grass, tree, critter, or fungus! When she’s melting down and needs to be away from the house, she asks Billy to take her to the state park so she can just sit and be quiet and calm down on a fallen tree or a swing set somewhere. They do have some woods behind their house but she’s too afraid to venture out there and prefers to be out with her brother anyways.

-Stims! She’ll fiddle with zippers and buttons and loose threads constantly to the point that they buy her three or four of the same jackets and shirts for when she inevitably breaks them. She also chews on sleeves and hoodie strings a lot. Other tactile stims she favors are string tricks and braiding and tieing knots! Braiding her and Billy’s hair is something she’ll do anytime she needs to feel grounded, and she has a whole bunch of those little wooden boards that kids use to learn how to tie their shoes to tie knots with. She also always has a pocketful of yarn, and her favorite thing to make with them is a spider web or a star!

-Sort of related to her fascination with string is that her shoelaces never ever match, she has like a whole drawer in her room full of different ones to change them out! (and she has Miss Piggy Bow Biters to put on them!)

-She’s also a very verbal stimmer at times! Giggles for days with Max, if she’s excited, happy, nervous, whatever, she’s giggling. Humming and mimicking too, like if she hears a sound she likes she’ll try to make it, whether it be part of a song or something she hears outside. But if she is sad she’ll get as quiet as a mouse.

Idk these are just like my sort of canon compliant hcs I guess? Like what I feel would be true for her in the timeline and storyline of the show!

#answered #anonymous #max mayfield #hcs under the cut because I’m long winded lol #thank you lovely anon for giving me the opportunity to ramble about this <3 #I could go on about this for eons #I actually have three fics planned out centered around Max’s autism #it just feels nice to project onto a character I relate to on so many levels #hope you like tho anon!#also always happy to share more!#<3

21 notes · View notes

kingsandsaints · 4 years

Note

I feel like not a lot of people consider that whenever we see billy displaying genuine emotion in the show is whenever he's crying. I like the idea of billy letting his guard down in front of steve not being afraid to cry, even over the small things.

Oh BIG TIME! Canon!Billy is one big mask. I’m still rewatching s3 with my sis and it’s honestly so weird to be reminded of what a douche Billy is in the series :p But yes, the only time the mask slips is when he really can’t keep it on and he starts crying. I imagine it would take A Lot before he can cry in front of Steve.

[*record scratch* then I started writing something that became a scene and then there were other scenes and then it basically turned into one of those ‘x times B y’s + 1 time B z’s’ thingies. anyhow, I hope you enjoy]

~ Billy learns to cry in front of people ~

First time it happens, Billy has had a shit day. It probably had something to do with his dad said to him in a fit of anger, something that seemed insignificant at the time, but proved harder to shrug off than he initially thought. He’s irritable. All of him feels as if he’s covered in a thick slime that’s itching and oozing but impossible to scratch off.

Steve doesn’t notice that Billy is crawling out of his skin and wants to be left alone. After a while of him playfully trying to get Billy’s attention, the guy snaps. Steve’s wide eyes are enough to make Billy’s heart jump in his throat because fuck he’s doing it. He’s lashing out and it’s scared Steve and somewhere from the pit of his stomach comes a mean whisper that tells him that he’s just as bad as his dad.

He mumbles an excuse and disappears into the bathroom, locks himself up and sits down at the edge of Steve’s bathtub because of course the Harringtons have a big ass tub. As he’s trying to figure out what happened, why he’s feeling this way, he starts to cry. He didn’t know he had to, but now that he does he doesn’t want to stop. After a minute or so he swings his legs across the edge of the tub, shoes and clothes still on, chest shaking and curls up inside it. It feels better, letting the soft whines echo across the tiled walls of the otherwise deadly silent bathroom. He doesn’t know that his crying is loud enough for Steve hear their muffled sounds from across the hall.

“Billy?“ he says softly as he raps his knuckles on the door. “What’s going on? Are you okay?” Clearly he isn’t.

When Billy hears Steve’s voice he lets out a wounded wimper and shrinks even deeper into himself. No. No. Steve can’t see him like this.

Somehow he hoped that if he ignored Steve long enough that he would eventually forget that Billy was even in there and get back to whatever he was doing. But Steve doesn’t give up and it’s not doing anything for Billy’s blood pressure.

“Babe? Can you let me in?”

‘Let him in.’ Steve was asking so much more than simply taking the lock from a bathroom door.

“Go away,” Billy blubbered into his knees. A pause.

“I can’t hear you.”

Billy lifts his head, clear his throat and in the most steady voice he can manage he says:

“I wanna be alone for a bit. I’ll be back in a minute.”

“I can hear you’re upset. I don’t want you to be alone in there.“

“Steve-” Billy takes a deep breath of air that seems both too hot and too cold at the same time. “Just give me a second, yeah? I just wanna be alone.” The silence on the other side of the door draws on.

“Okay.”

After that the quiet returns. When it does, Billy finds that he doesn’t feel the need to cry anymore. Having to negotiate with Steve sort of pulled him back to earth it seemed. He still takes another 10 minutes of quiet contemplation before he gets out of the tub. Then another 5 of looking at himself in the mirror, trying to fix his hair and face to make them say anything other than ‘I just cried in your bathroom like a fucking pussy’. Because that’s what it is, he’s just too sensitive. He needs to man the fuck up.

Billy stares at his own red-rimmed eyes and thinks ‘what does he even see in you?’

It takes one last deep breath before he can finally take the lock from the door. He startles when, upon opening Steve tumbles into the bathroom and hits his head on the tiles.

“OW! FUCK!”

“Dude, what the fuck! Are you okay? Have you been here the whole time?” Steve squirms as he rubs the back of his head. His dark hair that is spawled around his head stands out starkly against the tiles.

“I kinda forgot this door opened to the inside, sorry.” His voice is quivering. Billy’s heart drops when he sees tears well up in Steve’s eyes.

“Fuck, are you okay? Are you bleeding?” Steve pulls his hand back to find that there is no blood.

“I don’t think so,“ he whimpers.

“Here, let me look.” Billy helps Steve sit up and digs his fingers through his boyfriend’s hair, reliefed to find no wound. He’ll probably get a lump but for now there’s nothing there.

“Seems you’re okay,“ Billy breathes as he pulls back and searches Steve’s face for a sign of hurt. “Are you?“ Steve takes a deep breath and wiped the wetness from his eyes.

“Yeah, should be fine.” He whispers as he rubs his hands dry on his jeans. “What about you though? Are you okay? What was that about just then?”

Billy doesn’t answer right away. He’s still registering that Steve just passed a few tears and moved on like that was nothing. He didn’t even hide it. It didn’t even seem to occur to him.

The second time is when they are watching a movie. When Steve wanted to get high and watch a Disney Movie, Billy didn’t expect it to be so sad like fuck did they really have to kill the mama deer? Couldn’t they just let them eat some fucking grass? At some point, Steve turns to Billy and asks:

“Are you crying?” Billy blinks furiously and clears his throat.

“No,” It still comes out croaky. He’s just tired and a bit woozy and emotional. Steve laugh is warm and kind. Billy finds that he doesn’t mind Steve’s snickering, especially not after the little squeeze he give to Billy’s thigh.

“It’s gonna be better from here on, I promise.” He says sweetly. And like that the moment disappears.

It still feels wrong at times. Crying is a punishment in and of itself, but in front of people is straight up torture. It’s simply not an option. To cry is to show weakness and to show weakness- well, then you die. Billy is pretty sure that’s how these things work. So whenever he is frustrated, it comes out in either rampant anger or silence. He shuts down and finds himself inable to respond to anything. It’s almost as if his body doesn’t even exist. At some point Steve learns to leave Billy alone when he gets like this. He often needs to collect his thoughts before he can even begin to think about talking through his feelings.

After a particularly rough night, Billy stands on Steve’s porch, water pouring from the sky and out of his eyes. As soon as he opens the door, Billy launces himself into Steve’s arms. And Steve catches him. He actually catches him and keeps him up on his feet. His arms fly to Billy’s drenched back and he holds him tight while Billy sobs into his shoulder.

It’s terrifying. Billy expected Steve to dissolve, to drop him, but Steve is solid and warm and he smells like home. He’s not going away. He’s here. He’s staying and he’s safe.

“Hey, tiger,” Steve whispers gently as he rubs Billy’s heaving back. “Lets get you out of the rain, yeah? Lets go inside.”

Steve gives him dry clothes and a blanket and hot chocolate that is more lukewarm than hot because he didn’t put it in the microwave for long enough but Billy still drinks it. Because Steve held him up and Steve is towell drying his hair and Steve isn’t scared of him or put off by his weakness. Steve talks to him like he would otherwise. When he senses that Billy is not in the right headspace to talk about what happened, he does the talking for him, a little monologue to give Billy’s mind something to do. Steve talks about the video store, about the girl Robin has been trying to hit on, about the kids and their shenanigans. He plays with Billy’s hair, scratching at the nape of his neck as Billy sips his drink and when he’s done, Steve takes him upstairs to a bed where he never lets Billy slip out of his hold.

Years later, at Joyce and Hopper’s wedding, Billy is asked to speech. Or rather, he insisted on giving a speech. After his own dad found out about Steve and kicked him out, the couple took him before Neil could even get Billy’s suitcase out the door. They’ve been better parents to him that his own family ever was. They saw the good in him, gave him a roof, clothes and put him through college. And above anything else, they never made him feel like he was too much to handle, moodswings and all.

Billy starts out playfully and manages to pull a few laughs from the crowd but as he gets serious, his throat closes up, a hand come to his mouth and he has to struggle not to let the dams flow over. Then suddenly there’s a hand on his lower back, the scent of a familiar cologne and a gentle whisper in his ear.

Hand still on Billy’s back, Steve takes over, speaks the words that Billy can’t get over his lips. It’s a litlle bit embarrasing, to have his boyfriend read out his deepest gratitutes to a room full of people, but Billy can feel nothing but love from the room. He can barely glance in the direction of his adoptive parents because he knows for sure that Joyce is crying and once he sees her tears he’s sure he won’t be able to keep dry.

As Steve gets to Billy’s favorite part, he takes it back over and forces the words through his narrow throat. He even manages to look the couple in the eye a few times and find that even Jim has a bit of wetness in his eye.

When he’s done, the crowd errupts into a long withheld applause as Jim and Joyce get out of their seat to embrace their son. Steve pulls Billy into his side and kisses the tears from his cheeks.

“You did good, baby.” He whispers. And Billy almost believes him.

This just became a little ficlet ?? idk how that happened. I don’t know if this was something you wanted but thanks for the ask! I’m usually not the person people come to for headcanons but this was fun! keep em coming!

#harringrove #harringrove headcanon #billy hargrove #steve harrington

237 notes · View notes

darkblueboxs · 4 years

Text

Behind the Scenes: Iron and Ember

These are scenes from earlier versions of Iron and Ember that ended up getting completely rewritten in later drafts. I felt bad about leaving them to rot in my files forever though, so consider this an insight into the writing process/ an au of an au/ bonus content/ whatever

(Link here if you haven’t read I&E!)

This one comes after Neil and Kevin are attacked by Riko in the forest. It was later replaced by the boat confrontation to fix issues with characterisation/plot holes, but I’m still a sucker for the angstier elements, so:

They wait until the dawn of the following day to return to what remains of the Fox’s camp. The battlements lie in smoulders, their tents shredded and their shelters kicked to pieces. There is no sign of the other foxes. No blood, no bodies, nothing.

In the middle of the main pavilion they find the body of a fox-antelope, its orange fur matted with red. Neil levers the scroll out from beneath its head and scans it over before handing it to Kevin.

The Foxes have been captured. Riko will release them on one condition; Kevin hands himself over. If not, they will all be killed.

The sound Kevin makes is not recognisable as he falls to his knees. Neil stays standing, but barely. For as long as he can remember, being captured by the Fire Nation was Neil’s greatest fear. It’s only now, faced with the loss of his Foxes, that he realises there is something he fears more than his own death.

He hauls Kevin back to his feet despite the shaking of his own limbs. Kevin’s expression echoes the white-hot fear shaking through Neil’s body. For months, both of them have lived in the relative safety of the Foxes’ encampment, both leaning on the sturdy foundations of Andrew’s protection. The steady presence both of them have grown accustomed to has been ripped out from beneath them, and the ground no longer feels sturdy beneath Neil’s feet. It takes a few moments to remember how to breathe again; when Neil opens his eyes, Kevin is bolting towards the camp’s perimeter.

Thankfully, Neil has always been the quickest of all of them. He tackles Kevin to the ground. The following fight is quick, vicious, and without a clear winner, both of them too exhausted after a night of fight and flight to come out on top.

“You’re not going back to them,” Neil snarls, hands fisting in his collar. “One of us has to survive! Don’t you understand? One of has to make it.”

Kevin grips Neil’s wrist, trying to wrench it back. “And it’s going to be you.”

“No,” says Neil, and it’s as though all the fight leaves him in one syllable. “No, it isn’t.”

Kevin doesn’t understand; Kevin can never understand, because the day he discovers who Neil really is will be the day that Neil’s life with the Foxes is over. Neil can barely live with the danger he puts them in as a runaway of the Fire Nation. Now Kevin and Riko know he isn’t just any runaway, but the Butcher’s son, and the danger has doubled. If any of them discovered that he was an avatar, they wouldn’t stand a chance. Riko would tear the world apart to get his hands on Neil, and destroy anyone who tried to stand in his way.

And they would try to stand in his way. Neil’s Foxes, stubborn, obstinate, endlessly caring. They never know when to back down from a fight, and he loves them for it. They wouldn’t give Neil up without a fight.

This leaves him with only one option.

He has to let them go.

“I have a plan.” He lets go of Kevin’s collar, taking his shoulder instead and squeezing. “I need you to trust me.”

Kevin has no reason to trust Neil now; he understands better than anyone the past which Neil has kept hidden. He knows their opposition, and he knows the fate that will meet them should they fail. All the same, he places his hand over Neil’s and nods. His skin is hot against Neil’s; the blood of firebenders calling to each other in perfect understanding. “I trust you.”

Neil leads the way, and Kevin follows.

They find Riko’s camp a mile north. The distance is insultingly short, like Riko has left the welcome mat out in the surety that Kevin will soon be kneeling on it. The guards lower their weapons and step aside as they approach, granting them access without comment. A circle of red tents have been erected around a central firepit. Riko stands before it, cast in silhouette by the bonfire at his back. Their encampment has not been erected with even the pretence of military strategy; the thin canvas tents are unprotected, and were it not for the presence of armoured guards it would look like a leisurely camping trip.

As Neil’s eyes adjust, he can make out the figures on the far side of the campfire, and his heart falls through his stomach. He had wondered how the small group of Ravens had disabled and kidnapped eight foxes with so little fuss and bloodshed. The answer comes in the form of Jean Moreau, who stands at the end of the kneeling row of Foxes in a frozen ready-stance. Despite coming from the Southern Water Tribe, he wears the Fire Nation’s red garb, which drains the colour from his sea-grey eyes. Kevin has told Neil of the Fire Nation’s vicious attacks on the Northern and Southern tribes, and how the Fire Nation dealt with the prisoners it took. Some, like Jean’s family, took any deal they could to get into the Moriyama’s good graces, up to and including selling Water Tribe secrets to gain a position at the royal family’s side. Those that could not please or provide for the Fire Lord…

Kevin hadn’t needed to finish that sentence.

Jean was the only waterbender to be admitted to the Raven Academy, but despite a lack of instructors and guidance in his native element, he appears to have mastered waterbending as well as anyone.

It isn’t his waterbending, however, which holds the Foxes in place as though cuffed by invisible ties. Jean Moreau is bloodbending.

Kevin makes the realisation at the same time Neil does. The noise he makes is strangled as though an airbender has sucked all the air from his lungs. By the time they reach Riko, they are close enough to hear the sick gurgle of suspended blood, hanging thick and terrible in the air. One wrong move, and Jean could halt their blood flow entirely, starving their brains of oxygen and leading them to a slow, painful death. Sweat is beading on Jean’s brow, and when he sees Kevin his eyes slide closed, jaw clenching, somewhere between disappointment and relief.

“Kevin.” Riko opens his arms, as though expecting him to walk into them. “And you bought Wesninski too. A peace offering?”

At the sound of Kevin’s name, several of the Foxes’ eyes fly open, and heads jerk, fighting against their invisible constraints to look their way. He hears a slurred motherfucker from Matt, a low groan from Nicky, a stream of curses from Aaron and Dan. Their voices are horse, worn out from screaming or because of the pressure on their bodies, it is impossible to know. Neil looks to his family. He can’t help himself. He has never been on the receiving end of bloodbending, but he has heard second-hand experiences. The pain, the fear, the total loss of control. Matt is the closest; his expression is twisted as though possessed, and every vein stands out against his skin, swollen and blue. Dan is next, twitching constantly as though trying to beat back Jean’s bending with every movement. Nicky and Allison’s eyes are wet, but Allison glares with the fury of a saber-tooth lion, her arms straining against the lock holding them at her sides. A gag has been tied around her mouth, but Neil knows her muffled tones well enough to catch the gist of her intent. Aaron’s gaze is distant, and beside him, Renee’s eyes are closed, her body loose and relaxed, although Neil isn’t sure how she can expect to meditate her way free of this.

Andrew. Andrew’s gaze is the hardest to meet. There is no twitch or strain to his suspension, but unlike Renee, his body remains tense, as though caught mid-seizure and held there. His jaw is clenched tight as a trickle of blood paints his temple deep red. His eyes burn with questions, accusations, betrayal. Neil was supposed to keep Kevin firebending, keep him rebelling from the nation that was once his home. Instead, Neil has walked him back into the arms of the man Andrew swore to protect him from. Neil tries to put a thousand words into his answering gaze, but in the end settles only on one. Trust.

“Where’s Seth?” Kevin says lowly. Neil realises with another panicked twist of his gut that one of the Foxes was missing. Seth wasn’t a firebender, but he was from the southernmost Fire Islands, and officially a Fire Nation citizen. He was just as much a runaway as Neil.

“The non-bender? He should have known better than to put up a fight,” Riko says, eyes dancing with unrestrained delight. “We have to make an example of draft-dodgers, Kevin. I’m sure you remember.”

Neil’s eyes move against his will to the bonfire at Riko’s back. “No.”

Kevin jerks forward with fire in his eyes and in his hands. Normally, Neil would be delighted to see that he had grown a spine at last, but now is not the time for heroics. Not for Kevin, anyway. He holds out an arm and pushes Kevin back, placing himself once again between Kevin and Riko.

“Don’t be a fool, Wesninski. I am willing to let your insubordination slide in exchange for my brother’s return, but you would do well not to press me. Many people back home would love to watch you die a slow and painful death, many of whom are good friends of mine. Don’t tempt me to bring another little present home for them.”

“Neil, Kevin, what are you doing?” Matt hollers. “Get the fuck out of here!”

A guard steps forward and strikes Matt with the butt of his spear, and Matt’s head lolls.

Neil forces back the acidic taste of fear and bile at the back of his throat, throws water on the burning hatred stoked by Seth’s death. They were never friends, but they were a team. “I have a better deal for you.”

“Oh, do tell.”

“You let Kevin go. You let the foxes go. In return, I will give you something far more precious.”

Riko cackles. “Do you know how much time and effort we have exerted in bringing our lost Raven home? What could you possibly have to offer us?”

“I can give you the avatar.”

Riko goes very, very still. Neil swears he can hear a collective intake of breath from the surrounding soldiers.

“What?” Kevin’s voice comes out strained. “Neil, what the hell are you talking about?”

“Shut up,” Neil answers through gritted teeth. He turns back to Riko. “Do we have a deal?”

Kevin and Riko have been raised from birth to be the Fire Nation’s very best. The search for the Avatar has lasted years, crossed nations, caused countless bloodshed. Finding the Avatar is perhaps the only accomplishment that could render Riko worthy in the eyes of the Fire Lord, and this is what Neil is counting on. Everything depends on Riko’s need for his family’s acknowledgement outweighing his need for Kevin.

Riko’s eyes flick from Neil, to Kevin, to Neil. He steps forwards, close enough that Neil can smell the bonfire on his clothes. “We have a deal.” The hunger in Riko’s eyes is bottomless. “Where is the Avatar?”

“I will tell you when the Foxes are free and far from here,” Neil replies levelly despite the thudding in his chest. “Not a moment before.”

Riko flicks his fingers, and Jean drops his arms, falling into a heap as the Foxes are released.

“Don’t,” Neil says sharply before any of them can start a fight. “Go. Now.”

“Neil.” Dan fits a hundred questions into the single syllable, but it’s all Neil can do to shake his head.

“I said go.”

She nods. “We’ll meet you at the rendezvous point.” She casts Riko a look so venomous Neil is surprised it doesn’t kill him outright. “When he said the Foxes, he meant all of them.”

“All who remain,” Riko corrects her sweetly. Renee grabs Allison around the waist before she can react.

Neil can’t meet Dan’s eyes. He doesn’t know what will happen to him when Riko discovers the truth. He can only hope that a kinder version of his story makes it back to the Foxes, one that explains that he wanted to return to them. One that cuts around the pain, that of Neil’s past and that which surely awaits him.

The Foxes file out of the camp, passing between the silent sentries, quietly promising that if Riko didn’t hold up his end of the bargain there would be hell to pay. Andrew steps smartly over Jean’s form, which still shakes with exhaustion, and stops dead in front of Neil.

“Go on, mutt,” says Riko. “Take your master and go.”

Neil tries to force his features into some approximation of a smile. “Thank you.” He can’t bring himself to elaborate with Riko standing between them; for the bending, the kisses, the trust. “You remembered the firebending moves.”

Andrew’s gaze doesn’t move from Neil’s. Kevin glances at Riko’s expression and takes Andrew by the arm, pulling him away and after the others. If Kevin has any suspicions, Neil can’t read them in his expression, only panic, and an underlying vein of betrayal. Riko wasn’t the only one who spent a lifetime searching for the Avatar.

Neil counts to ten in his head in every language he can think of, counting the distance the Foxes will have placed between themselves and Riko. He’s startled from his thoughts by the press of a blade against his jugular.

“Tell me what you know.” Riko’s smile has tipped over the knife-edge from mirth to mania. “Where is the Avatar?” Neil looks at the mounting hysteria of the man before him and feels an ice-cold calm settle over him.

“Right in front of you.”

Riko’s expression freezes, as if unable to decide between laughter and fury. Before he can accuse Neil of lying and gut him like a fish, Neil pops open the waterskin at his hip and pulls a twisting trail of water from within.

His second-ever attempt at waterbending doesn’t last long; he holds the form long enough for comprehension to dawn before letting the shape collapse into the earth.

“Earth kingdom,” Riko says, barely audible. “You were supposed to be from the Earth Kingdom.”

“My mother was.” Neil flicks the lid of his skein closed. “Worked out pretty well for me, really. Just think, I was right under your nose for all that time. How many years have you wasted searching the earth kingdom? Fair warning, it doesn’t matter. You could find a thousand Avatars, it still won’t make Daddy love you.”

Neil feels the crackle of charge build in the air as Riko’s smile twists and falls in on itself.

“Jean,” Riko says without turning. “Hold him down.”

Jean drags himself to his feet, and suddenly Neil’s body seizes, his blood turning to thick slush in his veins. A scream catches in his throat and stays there and his lungs burn.

The last thing Neil remembers is Riko drawing back, lightning cracking and flashing around him, and then everything goes black.

This one came after Neil’s reunion with the Foxes. It ended up being replaced with the scenes in the air temple (and a more peaceful fall of the Fire Nation) but I still like the andreil dialogue soooo:

“Show me again.”

Andrew sighs. “Junkie.”

“I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.” Neil smirks even as Andrew clamps a hand over his mouth.

“That mouth,” Andrew growls, infusing enough emotion into the two words that he doesn’t need to complete the sentence. They stay that way a moment, waiting each other out. Andrew’s palm is warm against Neil’s lips, and he can feel the pulse roaring beneath.

He’s better at this now, sensing out the shift and glide of the world around him, layers upon layers of intermingling elements pulsing with a nameless energy, calling to him. He can pick Andrew out anywhere in a crowd, in the pitch black space between asleep and awake, in hurricane or thunderstorm or earthquake. He knows the weight of Andrew’s body and the pace of his footsteps, he knows the way he holds himself like he can take any hit the world throws at him. He knows the way the air fits in his lungs and the way his blood pumps in his veins and the way fire burns in his heart the same way it does in Neil’s, no matter how well-hidden. He feels Andrew in constant orbit like they’re celestial bodies caught in each other’s pull.

He isn’t sure if this sense is a side effect of being the Avatar or a side effect of being with Andrew.

He feels the huff of Andrew’s breath ripple the air around him as he gives in to Neil’s request. He turns to the nearest statue – another horrendous effigy of the deceased Fire Lord, singed but not destroyed in their takeover of the capital – and plants his feet on the ground, pulling the metal figurine apart.

The metal tumbles to the ground in twisted pieces, lost instantly to the scattered debris that litters the Royal Plaza. Reconstruction is well underway already, invaders and invaded joining together to rebuild a better world.

“Your turn,” Andrew says.

Neil approaches the next statue – Ichirou, whose profile still sends a jolt of panic down Neil’s spine. The man himself is safely confined in Boiling Rock, where he will remain until negotiations concerning the Fire Nation’s future governance and territory are complete. Neil’s earthbending remains next to non-existent, but he squares his stance all the time, imitating Andrew’s movements. He seeks out the call of the earth within the metal and comes up blank.

“Shit,” Neil says. It was only in the aftermath of storming Capital City that Kevin grudgingly admitted that Neil had mastered firebending sufficiently to move onto other elements, but Neil already feels miles behind. Kevin was insistent that Neil begin airbending, as was the traditional order of the Avatar cycle; Neil was equally insistent that he avoid the element for as long as possible.

“You’re trying to run before you can walk.” Andrew flicks a pebble at him, which bounces off his forehead. “Learn to earthbend. Worry about metal later.”

“I’ve done it before,” Neil says snippily. Andrew’s eyebrows twitch upwards. Through the course of their travels, they have yet to encounter anyone else with Andrew’s metalbending abilities. Neil says Andrew is a pioneer; he has discovered an entirely new form of earthbending, one which no one else in the world is capable of. Andrew is highly doubtful. Neil calls him the greatest earthbender who ever lived; Andrew tells him to shut up. Andrew still remains strangely detached from the element he has mastered so thoroughly, but Neil can see the change in his eyes, feel it in his pulse. It comes in times like this, where Neil watches him with hungry eyes as Andrew leads him, step by step, into the rocky core of his abilities.

Andrew steps between Neil and the statue with sudden focus. “You metalbended.”

“So you care about metalbending now, do you?”

“No,” Andrew says. He takes Neil’s chin between his finger and thumb. “Tell me.”

“Just the once.” Then, because he can say things like this to Andrew, and Andrew will accept it without horror or disgust or fear, “On my father. It killed him.”

“Good.” Andrew steps out of Neil’s path, opening his view to the statue once more. “Do it again.”

I hope you found these snippets from my recycle folder interesting - I have a lot of fragments like these but these were the ones I wanted to save most. Thanks for reading!

#aftg #andreil #my fic #iron and ember #tfc

10 notes · View notes

hargroves-angel · 5 years

Note

ah but imagine you and billy fucking in his room and poor max has to hear you screaming from her room and the next day when you babysit the party she confronts you about it in front of all the kids

October 7th - Scarred For Life

Summary - Max hears something she wish she could unhear.

Warnings - Mentions of smut, swearing, Mortified Max

A/N - Hope you like! Sorry I’m a day late x

You screamed out Billy’s name as he thrusted into you, causing your fourth orgasm to rip through your body. Billy panted as you both came down from your highs.

“That was- amazing” he chuckled in between heavy breaths.

“Y-yeah... it was perfect” Billy layed a kiss down onto your cheek and pulled out of you, throwing the condom into the bin and snuggling next to you.

“No way are you leaving my for that long ever again” he lit himself a cigarette, the smoke filling the room.

“Sorry... can’t help family vacations... my dad was wondering if you wanted to come next year? We can have our own hotel room” you winked. Billy smirked, liking the sound of that.

“Id love to angel, anyway I gotta pick that brat up from the arcade, see ya in a few... help yourself to food” he winked. “I’ll be 15 minutes” he shoved his jeans back on and combed his hair.

Stepping out of the door, he heard music? Did she leave on her crappy pop music again? Neil would go fucking mental, ‘wasting his money’ and all that.

He opened the door and went to turn it off, seeing Max laying asleep on her bed.

‘She must’ve skated home’ Billy thought, tiring off the music anyway and sneaking back into his bedroom.

“She skated home so looks like we can watch that movie now” he threw your clothes onto the side of his bed and watched you get dressed, smoothing everything back down.

Little did you know, Max wasn’t asleep, she was fucking scarred for life, hearing you and her brother going at it for the past 20 minutes! Not even her music could drown out every slap of your skin and scream of his name. Her eyes were wide open as she stared at the wall, there was no way she would be able to look either one of you in the eye again.

The worst part was that you were one of Billy’s nice girlfriends. You helped her study, braided her hair, gave her tips and tricks on where to shop, you were like a sister to her. And the fact that Billy! Billy was doing that! With you?! It grossed her out to such an extent she couldn’t even get the thought out of her mind.

Thai extended for about a week, despite car rides to and from school, she’d managed to avoid both of you. Luckily she wasn’t home much, especially when you were over. Deciding it was best to leave when you were alone.

She shuddered as she grabbed her books from her locker and bumped into Lucas.

“Woah, you good, you look like you haven’t slept in weeks” Lucas commented.

“Thanks, dick” she cursed. Lucas raised his hands up.

“Sorry, jeez what’s up with you lately?” He asked, walking with her to the car park.

“I- Umm .... oh god” she saw you and Billy at his car, he had you pressed against it as he made out with you, his hands wondering places. She gagged. “I- heard Billy and Y/N... uhhh”

“oh... OH!” Lucas let out a chuckle, shivering. “OH! They’re picking us up tonight as well... ok, just don’t mention it... I’m sure it’ll be fine. Just don’t tell Dustin or he’ll go crazy”

“Tell me what? Amigos” Dustin smirked, trying to act cool, smoothing his hair back.

“Stop trying to act like Billy, and it doesn’t matter” Max giggled at his attempt to be smooth.

“Whatever, let’s go then! I’ve been waiting to watch this film for a whole year!” Max breathed out, her eyes staying trained on the ground.

Billy was practically grinding against you by the time they reached the camaro.

Mike cleared his throat nervously.

“Get in the back and don’t, I repeat DONT! Get anything on the leather, I’m talking muddy shoes, books, even if you have to awkwardly hover, I don’t care... but if I see any marks on this car I swear to god I’ll-“

“Be very disappointed” you interjected, glaring at Billy. “Anyway let’s go”.

—————

After an awkward drive you finally arrived at the Hargroves household.

“Kids sit on the floor, ain’t enough room for all of you up here” Billy grumbled, grabbing a bag of chips and ripping them open. He gave you them to hold, sitting down on the couch, his arm resting over the back of it, you cuddled up against his side.

Max and Lucas sat uncomfortably on the rug in front of you.

The movie started and nothing happened, the only noise from behind Max was the sound of yours and Billy’s fingers digging into the chip bag and crunching.

Max felt herself relax, the awkwardness settling as she watched the film.

Then she heard some ... noises ... make our noises.

She could hear yours and Billy’s lips as they pushed together and roughly kissed eachother.

Her eyes widened, a disgusted frown apparent on her face as she kept staring at the screen, remembering the noises she’d heard earlier that week.

And then a sex scene came on TV, nothing too graphic but the noises. The damn noises, no wonder why Dustin wasn’t allowed to watch this at home. She covered her ears and stood up in front of the TV.

“Can you please, stop making out for one minute!” She growled. “It’s so gross! It’s like two wet fucking fishes slapping against eachother!” She groaned.

“Ever since last week you’ve been doing it all the time! Do you ever stop!” She yelled. Billy looked like he was gonna start shouting, meanwhile you were very confused.

“Max, what’re you talking about?” You asked, moving your face away from Billy’s.

“I’m talking about last week Y/N, when you and Billy were doing it!” She gagged at the thought again.

“And so what if we were doing it!” Billy defended.

You nudged him to shut up.

“Wait you heard us?”

“You weren’t exactly being quiet! You were screaming his name ‘BILLY!’ ‘OH BILLY’” she imitated. Lucas was about to burst into laughter.

“Did Billy hurt Y/N?” El asked innocently. Mikes eyes widened, meanwhile Dustin tried to watch the film.

“No I didn’t hurt her, I was f-“

“Helping me with my homework, but it was really hard... that’s why I was screaming, because I was just so frustrated, don’t worry about it El” you reassured her.

“Me and Mike do it all the time!” She smiled, completely unaware.

“We do not!” El looked even more confused.

“Either way! Max we apologise, we thought you were out at the arcade and then came back after, we should’ve checked before hand... but at the same time... we are adults now, and when two people love eachother very much...”

“OK! ok I get it, I’m sorry it’s just gross ok” Max calmed down sitting back onto the floor. At least you’d be a little more aware next time. But that thought of a ‘next time’ still made her gag.

“Finally” Dustin added, eyes trained on the screen. Max threw a pillow at him. “What was that for”

“Just shut up” she groaned.

Dustin smirked and shrugged his shoulders.

—————

Later that night.

El sat at the table with Hopper, eating some pasta.

“Me and Mike are gonna do it at his house tomorrow” she smiled at him, referring to her and him doing homework.

Hopper dropped his knife and fork.

“What!” He growled.

“Homework, Billy and Y/N do it all the time” she beamed.

Hopper breathed a sigh of relief.

“I’m never letting those two near you again, Jesus..” he chuckled.

#billy hargrove fanfiction #billy hargrove x reader #billy hargrove x y/n #billy hargrove x you #billy hargrove #billy hargrove fluff #billy hargrove imagine #billy hargrove fanfic #billy hargrove angst #billy hargrove smut

258 notes · View notes

letdecemberburninflames · 5 years

Text

Pain in the Ass

Aperçu: When Vince gifts his sister a backstage pass to a show, he is unaware that she is already quite familiar with the band. Specifically, the drummer.

Fic Type: Tommy Lee x Reader, Brother!Vince Neil x Reader, The Dirt fanfic

Warnings: It’s Mötley fucking Crüe, dude.

Author’s Note: This is the first band fanfiction I’ve ever written (let alone Mötley Crüe), and the first actual fic I’ve written in a long time, so constructive criticism is welcome and appreciated.

*_*_*_*_*

Having an older brother had pros and cons. Especially when he was in an internationally renowned rock band. To all the girls in the audience, he was some sort of sex-god, above all wrongdoing and rebuke.

To me he was just a pain in the ass.

A pain in the ass who thought backstage-pass tickets to his show would forgive the fact that he forgot my birthday.

Forgetfulness must run in the family, because I had conveniently “forgot” to mention that I was dating the drummer of my brother’s band.

And that’s how I ended up here, lounging on a dressing room couch, watching Tommy Lee apply lipstick and rouge in preparation for the show. The room was a bit hazy from the cigarettes we were chain smoking, and several empty bottles of beer littered the floor. Clothes and belts were tossed haphazardly around (Tommy had been very indecisive about his costume tonight) and there was a pile of unfinished blow sitting on a cymbal perched precariously on the side table next to me. He had never been the cleanest guy- not that I cared. I had grown up around Vince for fucks sake. And to be fair, those were my boots on the floor, and a couple of the beer bottles had been mine.

“So dude,” Tommy smeared on some eyeliner, “when are we gonna tell your brother that we’re together?”

I sighed, and picked at a loose string from a seam of the couch. I could feel Tommy’s gaze as he watched my reflection in his vanity mirror.

“I mean, he’s bound to find out sooner or later… But you and me both know that he’ll lose his shit-”

Tommy smirked, “‘Cus I’m fucking his sister.”

I laughed, and half-heartedly threw one of my boots at him.

“You’re mean!” Tommy fake-whined, spinning around in his chair.

I rolled my eyes, “C’mere silly, you have coke on your nose.”

---

Vince strolled into the greenroom, half expecting to see Y/N chatting with Nikki and Mick. Well, chatting with Nikki and probably talking Mick to death. She never seemed to shut up.

No Y/N, but he did find the headband he’d been looking for. That and a beer.

“Hey, Nikki,” Vince took a swig of his Heineken and slapped the bassist on the back. “Have you seen a girl about-” he raised his hand to indicate height, “yea high? Leather jacket and jeans?”

“What, you already lose a lady friend back here?” Mick raised an eyebrow.

“No man, I’m looking for my sister.”

Nikki shrugged, looking agitated. “I dunno, but do y’know where Tommy’s at? We’re on in ten.”

“Shit,” Vince spat.

Last week, he’d forgotten Y/N’s birthday, and in a half-assed attempt at an apology, he’d offered a backstage pass. Of course, she’d laughed in his face, but she took it anyways. Yeah, he kinda felt bad. But hey, he was busy. There were shows to put on, cities to visit, girls to fuck…

Mick looked up from practicing riffs on his guitar as Nikki stalked off to go find the missing drummer. “You have a sister?”

“Yeah, unfortunately.” Vince spun in a circle. “She’s not hiding in here, is she?”

“Fortunately, no.”

Vince collapsed on the couch opposite Mick’s, and downed a third of his beer. “She’s probably just making out with a roadie or some shit.”

“Wonder where she gets it from,” Mick muttered.

---

Nikki was in a sour mood. Well, more so than usual. The bass tech had somehow managed to lose one of the basses he was supposed to be playing tonight, and the replacement lacked the pyrotechnic abilities of the original, which completely ruined one of his favorite effects in the entire show. On top of that, Tommy was missing with less than ten minutes to showtime, and Vince had brought his fucking sister.

She was a pretty thing, though. Dripping with charisma, she wore a smile that matched Vinny’s and had a similar surfer-rock vibe. She had nice tits too. He had decided within two minutes of meeting her though that fucking her would feel too much like fucking a girl version of Vince and the idea of that creeped him out.

He stomped down the hallway, banging on doors in search of the drummer.

God fucking dammit, where the hell was Tommy?

Surely Doc had given him the ten minute warning. He was probably still in his dressing room jacking off or some shit.

Grumbling to himself, Nikki turned the corner and found the dressing room with Tommy’s name on the door. He lifted his hand to bang on the door and give Tommy a piece of his mind, when a noise stopped him.

A voice. A female voice.

Nikki chuckled. Of course that bastard had a girl in there. Very carefully, he cracked the door open, just enough to see what and who Tommy was doing.

Tommy was lounging on the dressing room couch, making out with a girl straddling him. The girl was wearing jeans and a leather jacket and- Shit!

Oh shit.

Nikki shut the door as quickly and quietly as possible. He grinned wildly. Tommy was making out with Vince’s sister. Vinny’s fucking sister!

Vince had to see this. He was going to fucking lose it when he found out.

Nikki flat out sprinted back to the greenroom where Vince was bitching to Mick about Y/N.

“She is such a pain in the ass. I can’t even believe-”

“Vince!” Nikki practically skidded to a stop in front of him. “Vinny, man, you gotta see this.”

Vince whined, “We’re on in like, five minutes! And I still gotta find Y/N!”

“No, really, you gotta see this.”

“Fine.”

As he followed Nikki back down the halls, Vince continued to complain. “Did you at least find Tommy?”

They turned down the last hallway to where the dressing rooms were, and Nikki shushed him. “Would you quit bitching for a second?”

Ever so slowly, Nikki inched open the door till they could see inside.

Tommy had abandoned his shirt on the couch, and Y/N had lost most of her clothing, with the exception of her leather jacket and underwear. She was seated on the vanity, Tommy standing between her legs, hands on her waist.

Vince lost it within the three seconds he had been peering through the cracked door.

“Y/N, WHAT THE FUCK?” Vince stormed in, leaving a bemused Nikki behind him in the doorway.

“Ever heard of knocking, asshat?” She snapped, pulling her jacket tight around her.

Tommy stood there, wide eyes darting between Y/N and Vince.

Just then, Mick appeared in the doorway. “We’ve got two minutes to- Oh.”

Nikki snickered as Mick took in the scene. Vince looked like he was going to strangle Tommy, who was desperately trying to pull his shirt back on and fix his hair. There was lipstick on his jaw. Based on their faces and Nikki’s giggling, it wasn’t too hard to figure out who the half-naked girl sitting on the vanity was.

“Vinny, this is my boyfriend, Tommy,” Y/N hopped off the vanity and pulled on her jeans.

“Yeah. No kidding.” Vince spat back.

“Sorry, man.” Tommy shrugged. “We were gonna tell you, but never really got around to it.”

“Uh huh.”

By this point, Nikki was full on losing it, on the ground laughing.

“What in the HELL is going on in here?” Doc poked his head in and pointed to his watch. “You all need to be on stage RIGHT NOW.”

Reluctantly, Vince decided not to kill Tommy right then and there. But as he walked past Y/N, he whispered, “You are SUCH a pain in the ass.”

She laughed and followed Mötley Crüe out of Tommy’s dressing room.

“Right back atcha, buddy.”

*_*_*_*_*

Permanent Tag List:

@lunarmoonwolf @silver-starburst @emotionalwierdo01 @thatshiscigar @asteriabrimstone @midnightwritingrussiancoffee @mismatch-the-socks

#the dirt #vince neil sister #tommy lee x reader #the dirt fanfic #motley crue #motley crue fanfiction #vince neil x reader #motley crue x reader #tommy lee #tommy lee fluff #the dirt x reader #vince neil

208 notes · View notes

gothpanda · 4 years

Text

A Little Bit of Attitude Ch. 3: The Starwood

Previous / Next

WORD COUNT: 4.6K

Read on Ao3

“Hey Amanda, do you and Brit have plans tomorrow night?” Sammi asked with her big red lips phone against her ear painting her toenails on her desk. Crickets echoed into Sammi’s room with her window open and the radio playing softly into the background. Her desk lap gave the room a dim comfort feeling as the night grew. “No, I don’t have anything. I know Britney wanted to go on a double date with some frat guys that have no brains. Why, what were you thinking of doing?” Amanda responded from her line, eating a lollipop on the window sill. Sammi sighed preparing herself on how to convince Amanda. “So Tommy and his new band are playing tomorrow in the city, I’m assuming on the strip. They invited me to go and I want you guys to come with me. It’ll be fun and we get some drinks in us” Sammi said in a happy voice while listening to pure nerving silence from the other end. Amanda sucked on her lollipop while looking outside contemplating how to respond.

“Listen Sammi you know how to feel in general about the punks. They’re just not my type of scene. They act all high and mighty.” Amanda said hearing Sammi huff. “But they aren’t punks! They’re a different type of scene, I don’t know how to describe it. Also, they’re actually really good! I heard the whole band today. Vince is a pretty good singer.” Sammi closed the purple nail polish bottle with a smile. Amanda rolled her eyes at the sound of Vince Neil's name. The blonde ran her fingers through her hair walking over to her bed. “Yeah well just because they sound good doesn’t mean their egos aren’t big.” Sammi tried to not bite her nails as she felt this conversation slowly go south. She knew Amanda had a point in terms of big egos. She was able to see Nikki’s as soon as they met. Vince always had an ego ever since he was a teenager. But that didn’t make them bad guys, right? “Look I know what you mean but it’s still my brother and I want to support him,” Sammi mumbled her eyes falling on a polaroid of Tommy drinking a bottle of Jack Daniels on her wall. “Is it at Starwood or the grimy Whisky place?” Amanda asked rolling her eyes to the back of her head. Sammi smiled a bit, “I don’t know but if it’s Starwood would you agree to go?”. Amanda groaned before agreeing to make Sammi excited. “Yay! I’ll call Tom right now and tell you in the morning!” Sammi said gleefully hanging up and punching in the number to the Motley House.

After a few rings, someone finally picked up with loud noise going on in the background. “Hello?!” someone yelled on the other line. “Uh hey who’s this?” asked Sammi with scrunched eyebrows. “Oh, Sammi! It’s Vince!” Vince yelled as loud as he could due to the party happening in the apartment. “Hold on one sec, I’m gonna use the phone in my and Tommy’s room.” Vince put Sammi on hold before walking into his shared bedroom. He noticed Mick sleeping on Vince’s bed like a mummy. It was the only actual bed in the room with Tommy’s mattress on the floor. Vince picked up the telephone off the floor and put it up against his ear. “Sorry Sammi, people came over after Tom and Nik came from the diner. What’s up?” Vince said quietly sitting on the bed trying not to wake the guitarist. Sammi smiled as she played with the phone cord. “Um well I don’t know if Tommy told you, but I’m gonna go to your guys show tomorrow. Nikki was nice to invite Athena and me but never told me where exactly.” Sammi said laying down on her bed. Vince raised an eyebrow to himself with slight confusion at Nikki being nice. “Oh well, that’s nice of Nikki to invite you. You know I would’ve done it but I know you live pretty far, don’t want you driving back home too late.” Vince said hearing something break in the apartment. “That’s sweet, Vince. I just want to support Tommy and you also.” Sammi said staring up at her ceiling. “Does that mean you’ll start coming to all of our shows then? For Tommy?” Vince asked hearing Mick slowly wake up from his nap. Sammi thought for a moment, “Well I’d try to come out to every single one in L.A. Why do you want me at every show?” the redhead asked. Vince smirked thinking on how to take this. He could be a suave playboy or remember this is Sammi he’s talking to. Vince shook his head and cleared his throat avoiding the question. “The show is at the Starwood it’s on Santa Monica Boulevard. We start at 8 so get there early to not wait in line too long.” Vince said wishing he had a beer in his hand right now. “Okay, thanks for the info. I don’t wanna keep you from your party anymore. Goodnight, Vinny.” Sammi yawned looking over at her clock. “Goodnight, Sunny. Sweet dreams.” Vince said hanging up the phone before a reply turning to see Mick be awake and sitting up. Sammi stared into space for a moment before putting down the phone on the floor next to her bed. ‘He remembers?’

Mick raised an eyebrow at the blonde remaining silent. “The fuck you looking at Mick?” Vince asked getting up. “Nothing, just curious as to when you told girls to have sweet dreams,” Mick said slowly getting up from the bed stretching his back. Vince rolled his eyes walking out and almost tripping on the mattress. The rockers walked to the kitchen, seeing chaos in the living room remain. Vince got two beers, passing one to Mick. “I can be a gentleman! It’s Sammi so I have to be nice to her.” Vince took a sip from his beer still feeling Mick’s unimpressed eyes on him. “And calling her Sunny?” Mick asked. “I called her names all the time when she was younger! Just ask Tommy!” Vince yelled through the loud music trying to defend his kindness for Sammi. “Whatever you say Blondie” Mick walked away from Vince sitting with the coked-out terror twins. Vince took a sip of his beer noticing a heavy chested brunette walking his way. “Hey are you in the band?” the brunette asked running her hand down Vince’s neck. “What the fuck do you think?” Vince said with a smirk taking the brunette’s hand and leading her to his bedroom. As Mick noticed the couple closed the door, he turned his attention to Tommy snorting another line of coke. “Hey Tommy, did Vince ever call your sister Sunny when you were younger?” Mick asked as Tommy lifted his head for air. Tommy pinched the bridge of his nose trying to remember. “Uhh no. Sunny is something my dad called Sammi when she was little. Why?” Tommy asked the alien. “Doesn’t matter. Just something I thought I heard.” Mick said sipping on his beer.

The next day, Sammi walked around the mall trying to find something to wear for tonight. She wasn’t in the same style as the girls that go to rock shows and never had a thought about changing her style. She barely even had one to change, Sammi mostly mimicked Amanda once they met. Amanda was the fashionable one out of the three. ‘I am gonna be 19 soon, maybe I should change it up’ Sammi thought looking at a tight black dress from the window with fishnet stockings. “Gag me with a spoon, please tell me you’re not going to get that dress?” Amanda said putting her arm around Sammi to her left and Britney giggling to her right. The blondes had just gotten out of work with perfect timing to help their friend. “No... I wasn’t actually, but I am glad you’re here to help me” Sammi said with a forceful smile to the two girls. “Well rock shows aren’t our thing but it is an excuse to be cute,” Britney said pulling Sammi towards a store called Pretty Pretty. “Yeah I don’t think what we wear is club-worthy,” Sammi said touching every garment from the racks. “Maybe that’s because we aren’t even meant to be those places. I mean I swear it’s like guys just stare at anything with tits.” Amanda said pulling out a fitted purple and white striped tank top. “Here Sammi gets this, you can wear jeans with them.” Amanda passed her the top walking away to help Britney. Sammi didn’t abject to Amanda and went along with her advice. She took the top to the cashier to pay for it looking over at Britney paying for a pink dress. With a nice smile to the cashier lady, Sammi strolled to the fitting rooms with Britney. “So is it true that your brother’s band’s lead singer is Vince?” Britney asked with hopefulness. Sammi gave a thin-lipped smile to her friend. “Yeah, Vince is the singer. They’ve known each other since high school actually.” Britney gasped grabbing Sammi’s arm. “Oh my gosh! Does that mean you can introduce us? I tried to get with him at a house party but some stuck up blonde pulled him away.” Britney said with a pout. “Sorry, Brit. Vince has a girlfriend. Who I actually met and I completely agree she is pretty stuck up. We’ll find you, someone, don’t worry, just not at the Starwood.” Sammi said gently squeezing Britney’s shoulder noticing Amanda walk out of the fitting room. “Britney do not go near Vince that also goes for you to Sammi.” Amanda said paying for her white dress. The three girls continued to walk around the mall before Sammi’s eyes fell back to the store with the black dress. “Hey, girls I just remember I need to go to the store to get my paycheck. I forgot it the other day.” Sammi lied in hopes the blondes will believe her. Amanda crossed her arms and eyed Sammi trying to look through her. Sammi resisted the urge to bite her nails and slowly stepped backward. “I’ll meet you guys at the Starwood with Athena.” Sammi said with a smile. “Okay, we’ll see you guys there! Come on Amanda, I wanna check out G.A.P!” Britney said looping her arm with Amanda’s dragging her towards a different direction.

Sammi sighed in relief before walking into the rock-esque store looking to see if the dress could be in her size. After closing looking through multiple racks, Sammi lucky saw the special dress up close and quickly tried it on. The thin strapped dress fit her like a glove and way too short for Tommy’s approval. Just covering her butt, Sammi smoothed out any wrinkles admiring the shiny leather fabric. It didn’t suffocate her like she thought it would and boosted her confidence. If Sammi was going to go to more of Motley Crue’s show, she might as well dress the part. Before walking out of the fitting room, Sammi’s attention was caught by a silver leather jacket hung in the corner. ‘Well shit, guess it’s my lucky day’ Sammi thought grabbing the jacket and paying to get the hell out of there.

“Sammi, how the hell are you going to sneak back into the house wearing that?” Athena asked from the bathroom doorway looking at her younger sister get ready. Sammi got a bottle of hairspray, lightly spraying her hair trying not to look ridiculous. “I was hoping Dad wasn’t going to be awake so I can run upstairs.” said Sammi. Athena looked at her sister one last time before going back to her room to change. Athena didn't know what to think about Sammi's Sudden Change in attire. Usually, she would try not to be the center of attention, but maybe she got the confidence out of nowhere somehow. “Alrighty Athena, I'm ready whenever you are.” Sammi said putting on bootie heels matching the dress perfectly in the small living room. Athena walked out wearing leather pants with a matching bralet grabbing her keys. “Come on it’s already going to be 7.” said Athena walking out with Sammi following.

After pulling up a block away, Sammi and Athena walked up to the Starwood quickly finding Amanda and Britney waiting line. “Hey, Amanda! Brit!” Sammi yelled seeing the girls turn around. Amanda immediately gave a fixed glare at Sammi’s outfit before saying anything. “Hey, you girls look so good!” Britney said giving both the Lee sisters a welcoming kiss on the cheek. “Yeah, nice dress Sam.” Amanda said pressing her lips tightly together forcing a smile. While oblivious to Sammi, Athena took a quick note at Amanda’s demeanor before kindly saying hi to her. Athena eyed Amanda for a bit while the four girls walked through the line looking at the young girls' mannerisms towards Britney and Sammi. Tommy was always saying how he never liked Amanda, but Athena could never see it. Maybe he was right about something? As the four girls finally entered the club, it was completely packed to the brim of people. The first thing to catch Sammi’s eye was the bedsheet hung to hide the stage in the back. Men drinking heavily talking about Motley, young women with their tits almost completely out bickering on who was the cutest from the band. Sammi never has seen anything like this but she could get used to it. Athena led the girls to bar ordering jack and coke for everyone without any consideration. “Here you go, girlies! Cheers to the boys' show!” Athena yelled enthusiastically clanking the glasses together. “Cheers!” Sammi said with a smile, continuing to look around. From the far left in the back of the club, Tommy peeked from the corner of the hallway leading to the back searching for his sisters. It was important to him that everything went right tonight and they had a kickass show. “Hey, T-Bone whatcha looking for?” Nikki said coming up from behind looking over Tommy’s shoulder. “I’m trying to see if I can find my sisters. We gotta play a dope-ass show tonight. I wanna make them proud of their big brother.” Tommy said with a giant smile. Nikki smirked slightly walking back to the rest of the guys to tune his bass. He caught Vince stretching his new leather pants and Mick taking small sips out of a Vodka bottle. “Come on we got five minutes! Lets fucking go!” Tommy said running and jumping into the backroom hitting all the guys with excitement. All the guys groaned tailing behind Tommy to the stage. Tommy positioned himself in his drum set looking over at Mick and Nikki stepping on the kick pedal grabbing the attention from behind the sheet.

Right on cue, everyone rushed to the stage once hearing the deep sound of the bass drum. Athena quickly grabbed Sammi’s hand trying to get to the front, pushing every huge guy and groupie insight. At about 10 feet from the stage with one quick pull of the sheet, the girls saw all the guys' belt out Live Wire with Vince running on stage. It was electrifying as Sammi looked up with flashing eyes and a dimpled smile. The boys were incredibly in sync, taking over the entire stage. She looked at Tommy bang on the drums like no tomorrow with a passion. She looked over at Nikki and would be lying to herself if she didn’t admit he didn’t look amazing putting all his might to the bass. Mick looked like he was in his little world, only caring for playing his heart out. Watching them practicing was only the tip of the iceberg to show off their skills. They owned the entire club and they all knew it. After looking at the guys one by one, Vince was able to make eye contact with Sammi and only Sammi. Girls around him tried to get his attention by touching his legs, but Vince only cared for Sammi in the sea of people. He gave her a wink before spinning on the balls of his feet starting a new song. Sammi looked down for a moment smiling softly not noticing Amanda's side-eyeing her. “We like to thank everyone for coming out tonight. We have two special ladies in the crowd with us tonight. Our drummer Tommy’s sisters!” Vince yelled in the mic pointing directly at Sammi and Athena. “You two and your friends can come to the back once this over in a minute. Only them though. Well, maybe you girls right here.” Vince said kneeling in front of the groupies smirking at them. “You sure you want to go party with them after this?” Amanda whispered closely into Sammi’s ear. Sammi turned her head looking at her friends for a moment before nodding. “Yeah, it’ll be fun. It won't be too long.” Sammi said with a tight-lipped smile. Sammi took quick note at Beth strut up to the stage pushing the groupies aside to kiss Vince. Britney looked over at Sammi with a pout noticing Sammi’s discomfort.

Once the show ended, everyone in the club scattered like ants to get more drinks or try to party with the band. Sammi started heading her way for another drink until a rough hand lightly grabbed her arm. Sammi quickly turned ready to hit someone assuming it was a drunk guy. “Woah! Sorry to scare you Sammi!” Vince said with his hands in the air chuckling. Sammi exhaled with a smile, happy to see the shaggy blonde. “Sorry, the guys here don’t make me comfortable.” Sammi said smiling slightly. Vince shrugged his shoulders looking around at some guys eyeing Sammi like a prime rib. He swallowed hard thinking of guys like him hitting on Sammi in a place like this. “You guys were awesome by the way. It was so nice seeing Tommy rock out like that.” Sammi said snapping Vince out of thought. Vince smiled at Sammi’s comments forgetting Beth in the back. “Thank you. I really appreciate you coming. I also really appreciate that dress.” Vince smirked scanning Sammi. Sammi blushed playing with the end of her hair. “Didn’t think you’d dress up for me.” Vince gave full eye contact step a bit closer to Sammi. Sammi tilted her head and smirked catching on to Vince’s mannerisms. “And who told you I put on this dress for you?” Sammi snapped back matching Vince’s smirk. Vince could only chuckle licking the corner of his lips. He soon noticed a straight hair blonde come up with a not so happy face. “Hi I’m Amanda, you must be Vince.” Amanda said sticking her hand out with a fake smile. Vince returned the handshake with hesitance glaring at Sammi. “So does the offer still stand on us partying with you guys? Or did your girlfriend tell you no?” Amanda asked with a smirk examining Vince’s discomfort at the mention of Beth. “No yeah you guys can come. Everyone just started drinking…” Vince said avoiding eye contact with the girls and instead saw Athena looking at him. “You all can start heading your way I’m gonna talk to Athena really quick.” Vince said squeezing Sammi’s shoulder and walking past them. He saw another blonde in a pink dress follow the girls leaving Athena alone at the bar. Slowly Vince leaned against the bar and huffed. “Athena why is your sister with that blonde chick?” Vince asked turning his head toward the middle Lee. Athena sipped on her jack and coke playing with the thin straw thinking on what to say. “I’m trying to figure that out. Tommy always has hated Amanda but never saw why ‘til an hour ago.” Athena said chewing on the straw and looking at Vince. “But I mean she’s 19, so let her be friends with stupid people. I did it too in high school.” said Athena. Vince chuckled for a moment. “You were friends with me in high school, remember?” Vince said smiling. “Exactly! I was friends with stupid people!” Athena said giggling. She got Vince by the arm pulling him to the back. “Come on let's go before Tommy drinks all the whiskey.”

The back rooms were tiny, smelled like cigarettes, and felt even more crowded than the actual club. Vince and Athena pushed past the drugged-out people try to walk to the biggest room there was. Out of nowhere, Beth halted them in the middle of the hallway. “Hey baby.” said Beth fully kissing Vince tongue down his throat. Athena could only roll her eyes continuing to walk. Entering she saw all types of people on top of each other. Nikki in one corner talking to two girls looking at him as a god. Mick is one corner on the sofa sipping vodka straight from a bottle somewhat paying attention to a brunette. She soon found her siblings with Amanda and Britney sitting on a table in the corner. “Athena!” Tommy yelled wrapping his long arms around his sister engulfing her in a big hug. “Dudes I’m so happy you guys were able to come!” Tommy said taking a swing from his whiskey bottle. Sammi smiled happily stealing a sip from the Jack Daniels. “Yo Sammi if you wanna drink, you can go get some beers in the other room.” Tommy said with a smile yanking back his Jack. “Okay. Come on girls come with me.” Sammi said nodding over to the doorway. The girls walked into the smaller room seeing the ice chest in the corner by itself. Passing through everyone, Sammi opened the chest and passed two beers to her friends.

“Hey what’s all the white stuff on the tables?” Britney asked Amanda and Sammi. On the table were multiple empty baggies surrounding a white powdery mountain. The girls looked over to see a longer-haired guy make two tiny thin lines on the table. He rolled up a dollar bill, putting it up his nose to then snort them without any challenge. “That’s cocaine, Britney. Guys here always do that stuff.” Amanda said sipping on her beer looking at Sammi’s frozen face. Sammi didn’t want to think it, but she knew this was the room the guys got ready in before the show. The crossbody bag Sammi gave Tommy for his birthday was on the vanity table next to the mirrors. Sammi slowly walked to the bag placing her beer down to look through it. With careful fingers, Sammi opens it to find another small baggie of coke with two wrapped up white balls next to it. The only thing Sammi could do was storm back into the bigger room to find both Athena and Tommy kneeling in the middle of the room snorting similar lines. “What the fuck are you guys doing?!” Sammi yelled at her siblings gritting her teeth. Athena and Tommy looked up with glazed eyes to their little sister. “Why the hell are you guys doing coke?!’ Sammi continued to yell as everyone around them stared at the three. Vince quickly walked into room coming to Sammi’s side trying to calm her down. “Hey Sam, it’s okay they’re not doing anything bad.” Vince said wrapping his arm around Sammi. Sammi quickly pushed him off of her looking disgusted and focused back on her main anger. Athena got up before Tommy wiping her nose of any residue. “Sammi it’s okay. We’re fine, I promise. Right Tom?” Athena looked down to see Tommy going back to doing 3 more lines of coke ignoring everyone around him. Sammi only huffed and walked out to the hallway to feel an arm yank her back into the room. She turned to see Nikki equally as high as everyone around them. “You know Sammi I’m pretty sure in that pretty little head of yours, you’re just dying to lose and crazy.” Nikki slurred with a smirk looking down at Sammi. His eyes went straight to his chest, drinking his beer. Sammi only inhaled sharply looking Nikki with anger then turning on her heels. “Amanda, Britney come on we’re leaving!” Sammi yelled with the girls following her.

“Tommy quit snorting!” said Athena shoving him off the table and pulling him up to his feet. Tommy stumbled trying to regain his balance and eyesight. “What happened?” Tommy asked wiping his nose and looking at everyone staring at him. “Dude Sammi fucking stormed out! Come on!” Athena said pulling her brother by the arm. Vince followed them until Nikki grabbed his arm. “And where the hell do you think you’re going?” Nikki asked squinting to the lead singer. “Gonna go help with Sammi! What fucking else?” Vince said shoving Nikki slightly. “And your girlfriend?” said Nikki tilting his head to the side seeing Beth behind Vince. Vince closed his eyes for a moment turning around seeing Beth unamused as always.

Stumbling out of the club, Athena and Tommy get hit with the summer nights breeze and no sight of Sammi. “Fuck, dude! We’re so fucked with mom and dad!” Athena says looking up at Tommy blinking rapidly. “Where did you park? Maybe… maybe she’s by the car?” Tommy suggested scratching his head with wide eyes. Athena nodded darting down the street to the next block, Tommy in tow. The car was completely abandoned, no one was around it and all the shops were closed for the night. Athena rubbed her hands over her face groaning and looked back up at Tommy. “Maybe she went to the apartment! It’s just up the street towards sunset! Come on!” Tommy said grabbing Athena’s hand. Athena stuck her feet to the ground and yanked her hand away from Tommy’s grip. “Toms she isn’t here… we’re just gonna have to wait ‘til the morning. I’ll- I’ll call the house and say Sams sleeping over. She has to be with her friends.” Athena said with defeat looking around one last time. Tommy sighed starting to feel regretful for snorting coke. “If she didn’t hate me now, she must really hate me.” Tommy said sitting on the concrete sidewalk back against a store. Athena sat next to Tommy putting her head on his shoulder. “She’ll come around… she always sticks with us when we do stupid shit.” Athena said with a glimmer of hope.

From a distance, running steps came towards the siblings. The Lee’s looked up to see Vince alone coming to him. “Hey, where’s Sammi?” Vince said beginning to look around. “She left, man. We have no idea where she went.” Tommy said fumbling in his pockets for a cigarette. “What? What about her friends? You don’t their addresses or something?” Vince asked pulling out his cigarette packet to toss to Tommy. “Nope.” The Lee siblings said in unison each lighting a cigarette. ‘God fucking dammit, Sammi. If they can’t find you, I’ll fucking try’ Vince thought to himself darting back to the club. Before he could reach the back, he accidentally collided into a girl. “Oh shit sorry. Wait, Lily?” Vince said grabbing onto Lily’s shoulders. “Oh hey, Vince! Good show tonight!” Lily said playing with her hair. “Yeah, thanks. Random question do you happen to work with a blonde girl either named Amanda or Britney?” Vince asked rubbing his hands together nervously. “I actually work with both Amanda and Britney. Why you wanna get with one of them?” Lily asked with her eyebrows scrunched up. “No! No! Honestly no! I’m trying to find Sammi. She came with them, something happened, and left with them. She didn’t tell her siblings where she went.” Vince rambled hoping Lily would get the picture. Thankfully she did. “My bet is they’re at Amanda’s place. She lives in Pasadena. Here let me write her address down.” Lily said pulling out a pen from her purse and scribbling on the singer's palm. “Thanks, Lily! I really appreciate it!” said Vince kissing Lily on the cheek and ran out of the building. He ran towards their apartment, got into the old van, and headed east.

‘Sammi better not give me shit for this.’

#Motley Crue #The Dirt #the dirt fanfic #Motley Crue Fanfic #motley crue fandom #nikki sixx #tommy lee #vince neil #mick mars #douglas booth #colson baker #mgk #daniel webber #iwan rheon #A Little Bit of Attitude #Netflix

36 notes · View notes

sinterblackwell · 4 years

Note

for the ask game, you know i’m gonna say all for the game

thank you, i literally reblogged that ask game simply so i could talk about aftg 💜

all for the game trilogy by nora sakavic

my favorite female character:

renee; where i connected the most with her is in her understanding that there’s a lot more to notice than what’s on the surface, in both situations and with people. her relationship with andrew is a prime example but now that i think about her and allison, i can see it even more clearly.

i have particularly mixed feelings about allison’s character but when i think of that moment where renee protected her in “the king’s men” after andrew retaliated at allison for slapping aaron (+ another moment in the same book when the foxes are in baltimore and neil notices the bruises that renee and allison share after the riot in binghamton), i understand why so many people love them together. how we see allison is debatable but how renee sees allison means that there’s a connection somewhere, like with andrew; one that you can’t judge upfront.

my favorite male character:

kevin; i talked to you in particular @evxnbuckley about my feelings toward him but to put it short here, i bonded with him during a small period in my life where i was feeling very intensely (and still do) a shame that he as well faced in the books. seeing that shame reflected by aftg fans who defend him with all their heart, reading ao3 fics in where his shame is explored better despite being from another character’s perspective; it was hard to not grow attached to him.

plus there’s so many fun facts about him that i’ve read through those tumblr posts i’ve read; like the headcanons of him being bisexual and how he acts in the history classroom + him being a history major in general; what his love for the trojans means to everyone (when i think trojans, i think of the trojan war thanks to having read “the song of achilles” by madeline miller (despite it being categorized as greek mythology, i still define it as a point in history, hence new headcanon; kevin likes mythology) and how kevin being a history major means that there could be something even way more to why he loves this particular exy team and i love that).

i just love him and the little headcanon i have of him myself where he’s hispanic; i don’t really know, it just feels right to me. it probably doesn’t make sense, but it popped up in my head a while ago and now i can’t stop picturing him as such.

my favorite book/season/etc:

“the foxhole court”, book one; despite having only rated it four stars on goodreads, i greatly enjoyed this wild introduction to all the characters in the aftg trilogy. what i loved even more (which perhaps wasn’t the best decision on my part) is that it started out as a mild curiosity of a trilogy that i briefly recalled a booktuber had ranted about a while ago (i completely forgot said rant, besides something about the misuse of drugs), and yet there was nothing more. i didn’t know too much of what to expect besides what i gleaned from the short summary.

i think it’s having had that curiosity and being surprised with the characters i met, plus diving into something that i didn’t foresee i would fall in love with that makes the first book a favorite. it’s something sentimental to me, now that i think about it. it wasn’t until i read the last chapter that i realized just how deep i would go into this trilogy, especially with how...ominous it felt with andrew + neil’s last conversation (the nature of it, to be more clear) being the closing of the first book. i couldn’t not want to read what happens next for all of the characters.

my favorite episode (if it’s a tv show):

my favorite cast member:

my favorite ship(s):

andrew + neil; nicky + erik; kevin + happiness

nicky and erik’s relationship, in particular, is something more in the background; but when i’m seeing nicky and how much he puts himself forward so much of the time (in times also where it’s inappropriate), how much he cares for the foxes and especially andrew + aaron, i think of how erik must have helped him so much in learning how he could be himself and love who he is for himself. how that path towards self-love directed nicky to want that so much for the foxes, for neil. i wish we could’ve heard more from erik; seeing him in “the king’s men” felt bittersweet because he was always spoken through the other characters and yet this was the one time we could actually hear from him. that one just didn’t feel like enough.

but it’s quite alright, that’s what fanfiction is for.

a character i’d die defending:

kevin; i don’t speak too much about him, i let all those posts i reblog that are centered around him speak for themselves. but i have moments to myself where i think about how some people (who i’ve only ever crossed paths once) dislike him for the things that i’ve connected with. it’s more personal to me when this is a character i created a bond with and some of the things that i read from others is how much people bash him (or at least used to) and it sucks the energy out of me while also fueling me beyond belief; imagine that, imagine a character who you see yourself in, who you see so much potential in, get overlooked or overly judged as if there isn’t much more to them. as if this scene doesn’t exist:

- “the king’s men” by nora sakavic

(+ i feel like only those who actually read aftg will understand this but my point still stands)

exy is something he truly loves, a sport that was forced down his throat but he didn’t grow to hate it, no he loved it; and he was brilliant at it. this was the time he was going to show everyone just how much; just how much he was worth beyond the the ravens and riko. he was going to try with everything that he could and this was his first step. doesn’t that mean anything to you?

a character i just can’t sympathize with:

none; if i wasn’t reading “the unkindness of ravens” by @/crazy_like_a on ao3, my first choice would have been seth. but since i am, and since the author is doing such a monumentally fantastic job with his character by developing him way more than canon could have even had the decency to attempt, my opinion has changed.

to be quite honest, i’ve sympathized with most of all the characters. the only way i can answer this is to say that characters i just don’t care for at all are kengo and tetsuji. their fates in “the king’s men” didn’t matter much to me because they were such faceless characters in the trilogy, only really spoken of or shadowed through the actions of characters like neil, kevin, jean, riko, and even ichirou.

there’s nothing to really sympathize them for, that’s basically it, but this is somewhat my thoughts; if that’s enough.

a character i grew to love:

kevin; my attachment to kevin came not when i was first reading the books, but when i became swept up in aftg fics on ao3 afterwards and found myself reblogging heaps of content about him on this blog. i found myself growing very defensive about him, and was pushed to start seeing myself in him as i got to see his perspective better.

there’s this one scene that kevin has with neil in “the king’s men”, where he questions how neil could be so brave among all the threats that are posed against him. this question is coming from someone who’s spent so much of his life having his voice being told it didn’t matter and it just being:

exyexyexyexyexyexyyou’llalwaysbesecondyou’llalwaysbesecondyou’llalwaysbesecondyou’renothingwithoutmeyou’renothingwithoutmeyou’renothingwithoutmeyou’renothingwithoutmeyouhearme?nothing.

reading that scene and understanding the implications of what kevin was asking neil and the fear and terror he has been holding onto for years, the longing to be someone so much more, it was that first inkling of how much he really meant to me.

my anti-otp:

kevin + thea; i greatly prefer the former being single and that’s very valid of me.

#❣️#i spent over an hour on this post and i love myself that for that #with how much i referenced ‘the king’s men’; you would have thought the third book would be my most favorite #but *no*; i’m stubborn and so i stand by my statement that ‘the foxhole court’ is my favorite #asks

2 notes · View notes

angrylizardjacket · 5 years

Text

people change {Vince Neil}

@champagneandspice asked: hey! I adore your writing!!! could u please do a one shot but in the form of an article ? you’d be writing it as if you worked for people magazine or something like that. could u pls write ab the “speculated rumors” ab vince and I dating are true?? u could insert pictures or whatever u like. thank u <3

A/N: 2065 words. I love!! This style!! Of Writing!! also probably not what you were asking for, but i had fun and i hope you do too. i really sort of like this world/reader persona i’ve built?? i even added a few pictures for effect lmao. hope it’s enjoyable. i don’t usually do tags for one-shots but @cosmicsskies and @crazylittlethingcalledobsession asked and im too giddy to refuse.

WHAT THE F*** DO YOU THINK? - Mötley Crüe singer Vince Neil and Joan Jett & The Blackhearts newest guitarist Y/N Y/L/N spotted getting cosy after Crüe’s Atlanta show last Saturday? Does this hint at a collaboration between two bands, or is this more personal than professional? [Read more on Page 10...]

“What the f*** do you think?”

If you’re a woman working in or around the rock and roll music scene in the past half a decade, you’ve probably heard these words, or some variation of them, if you’ve come within a ten foot radius of the glam metal juggernauts Mötley Crüe; Nikki Sixx, Tommy Lee, Mick Mars, and their blonde, boyish singer Vince Neil. They’re crass by reputation, however this is unsurprisingly true to life, though if you were interested in reading an expose regarding the number of gigs they’ve done while high, or how many hotel rooms they’ve set fire to, there’s innumerable gossip rags and magazines covering those particular scandals, including at least two Rolling Stone articles in the past two years, and we’re not here to retell old stories.

When attending their concert in Atlanta last week, which I highly recommend; if given the opportunity, and you enjoy their music, see Mötley Crüe live, they give an almost unparalleled live performance, in my humble opinion as a music journalist of almost a decade, I was fortunately privy to the moment that sparked debate and controversy within the rock music gossip sphere. After the show, while I was made to wait at the stage door, their manager Doc Mcghee was kind enough to invite me to the afterparty. There, at the stage door, restless fans were held at bay, young men in black leather pants, emulating their idols, young women in barely anything at all, there to catch attention and garner the same invitation that I had received, and when the band themselves appear, it’s as if the gates of Hell had opened; the screaming I heard, ladies and gentleman.

First through the doors is Mars, already looking like he needs a shot or a nap, and he dodges more than one bra thrown his way, giving me a longsuffering look as he passes. To be that exhausted by fame is on a level I can’t even begin to comprehend. He’s on the tour bus which will take us to the hotel bar for drinks almost before anyone else is even out of the building.

Next comes what the fans have affectionately dubbed ‘The Terror Twins’, Sixx and Lee, both carrying a beer each, followed by several very pretty women who head to the bus whilst the musicians take the time to say high to their fans, signing various body parts and generally taking the time to interact with the more hardcore of their following who were waiting in the cold night air. They’re enough of a distraction that one might have missed the final band member, Vince Neil, laying uncharacteristically low, and who had actually been preceded by a surprising figure; Y/N Y/L/N, the most recent addition to Joan Jett & The Blackhearts as their rhythm guitarist.

And this, dear readers, is the moment I decide to write the first gossip piece of my life.

As someone who regularly set fire to the copies of Hollywood Star my then-housemate had been getting delivered to our apartment back when I first began my journalistic career, the idea of writing an article based on speculation about the sexual conduct of celebrities was an idea I rejected out of hand. I’d told myself I had integrity.

But then my proto-punk loving heart betrayed me, as I recalled Y/L/N’s lyrics from my favourite song of her’s, Sucker Punch, ‘speculate / scream my name / my heart, my love, baby it’s a game / they call me heartless, fancy-free / as if anyone’s meant something to a girl like me’. Y/L/N has been credited as the sole writer for the single, under her band at the time, Nuclear Patricide, who had garnered a cult following that has been credited as an idol for Joan Jett herself. After the Nuclear Patricide’s split in early ‘83, it’s been relative radio silence from the writer and lead guitarist until Joan Jett & The Blackhearts announce her as their newest addition, and she’s been with them for almost two years since.

[ID: Stills from Nuclear Patricide’s music video for Sucker Punch, 1980, known for the appearance of then-break out star Jamie Lee-Curtis. Editor’s Note: Y/L/N did not appear in the music video herself.]

So, upon seeing Y/L/N trying to keep a low profile whilst exiting a gig she clearly was not playing at, without any of her own bandmates to keep her company, I must confess I began to wonder, to speculate about the nature of her relationship with Mötley Crüe. She’s adamantly and publicly denounced romantic relationships in her work and in her public appearances up until her split from her original band, so has anything changed in the past few years?

Back at the hotel, I find myself weaving in amongst groupies and fanboys. My dark jeans and leather jacket act as a camouflage in this den of debauchery; I’ve worn professional clothing to this kind of thing before, and it usually doesn’t go over well; if the band sees a reporter there’s a sense of immediate hostility in what’s meant to be a safe space, relatively speaking, however, I’ve found that blending in, and making it clear I’m not on the offensive makes them drop their guard enough that they’ll give an honest interview.

At least until a pretty girl walks past.

Neil and Y/L/N are nowhere to be spotted as I finally take a seat with a table that has neither cocaine nor a woman on it, and once I’ve ordered a drink and looked over my notes, someone actually joins me of their own accord. It’s Tommy Lee, who, to my surprise, recognises me from the last time Crüe had played in town.

He talks about the tour, about how exciting it’s been and how he loves Atlanta, but he’s losing focus very quickly, not surprisingly since his name is being called by other tables every few moments, and there’s a faint dusting of telltale white powder around his nose. He promises ‘see you ‘round’ [sic] and then he’s off again. However, it’s as he leaves that I spot Y/N coming from a room by the back of the bar, and I make my move.

Mars has, as I’ve been told, already retired for the night, Lee is up to his eyes in cocaine, Sixx already has his dick out under his table judging by the look of him, and Neil is surprisingly MIA, so Y/L/N is easy to spot as the odd one out.

Not nearly as f***ed up or strung out as the rest of them, I watch her order a jack and coke, and down the drink mere moments after receiving it, before she turns to me. It takes her barely a second before she correctly identifies me as a reporter. I ask if she remembers meeting me, back in ‘82, she says no, but that she can pick a reporter from a mile away.

People still fawn over her, pretty girls and pretty boys alike, her aloofness drawing them in, and I’d forgotten how overwhelming it was to be this close to her. She kicks a fanboy and a groupie who are messily groping each other out of a booth and we take their seats.

This is meant to be about Mötley Crüe, and I try to tell her as such, but she just gives me a thin smile.

“Then why did you come find me?”

And she gives me that stare, you know, the one from the cover of Nuclear Patricide’s final album, Treason Is A Girl’s Best Friend. It’s that piercing stare of hers that makes you feel like she knows everything you’ve ever done wrong in your life.

I ask about her relationship with Mötley Crüe, and to my relief she looks away.

She’s candid about admitting she’s travelling with them, but not touring, right up until I ask her about her relationship with each member of the band specifically.

“Mick’s fun; he’s very talented and easily riled up. They’re all very talented of course, but Mick’s dynamic, [because] of his age and everything, is interesting within the group [sic] and I enjoy watching it all play out. He’s smacked Tommy a few times.” I’m assured that nine times out of ten he deserved it.

She’s filled with glowing praise for both Sixx and Lee in turn, and even Doc Mcghee, but Neil she is oddly silent about. He’s the first of the band she’d met; he’d seen her play a few times with The Blackhearts and has admitted to enjoying her work in previous interviews when she’s been brought up, as the pair have been spotted together before. Well, she’s been spotted with the band before. Here is where she starts, to my surprise, to get antsy. So the rumours, which I had thought to be incredibly false given her history and general attitude, have more basis than she likes to let on.

And then she gets defensive.

He’s like cocaine; everyone’s doing him, it’s just the industry; no-one’s going to judge her for a fling. She does not appear to take comfort in the sentiment.

“People change.”

I ask her what she means. She refuses to clarify and leaves. Perhaps I pushed too far, but now I feel like a detective, and like I only have one more person I need to talk to. But perhaps I should have eased myself into talking about Y/L/N to Vince himself, but I’ll have to admit, between Y/L/N leaving and finding Neil, I may have done a bit of socialising with Sixx, which I recommend recreationally, and also if you have a high tolerance for most things.

“I don’t think we’re any of your f***ing business.”

Neil does not mess around, and apparently she’d already spoken to him about our earlier meeting. I leave it be, spend the night enjoying the festivities with Sixx and Lee when I can, leaving just before the sun comes up.

Some of you may be thinking this is dissatisfying, that you came into this article wanting me to confirm or dismiss the speculated relationship between Vince Neil and Y/N Y/L/N, but I can’t. Neither of them would speak to me, and I can only leave you with a list of things I saw that night, and you can make up your own mind.

- The room Y/L/N had exited from when I first spotted her is the same room Neil left less than five minutes later as we were talking. I went to investigate later; it’s a supply closet.

- After my encounter with Neil, and I’d stayed clear of them, whenever I would spot either of them, the other was almost always within arm’s reach. Make of that what you will.

- He definitely did a line of coke off her thigh at about three in the morning.

- I asked both Sixx and Lee about it. Lee’s response was ‘loud’ with something akin to a knowing smirk, and Sixx’s was ‘he’s a lucky bastard’ and when I ask him to clarify he just says ‘flexible’ and climbs to the next booth over where they’ve been asking him to do a line; I’m not even sure what to make of it, but personally I think it’s pretty damning.

- Readers, they were all over each other, I apologise for throwing my professionalism out the window for a moment, but if I’m being honest I couldn’t look to a secluded corner of the room without there being a 40% chance of seeing Vince and Y/N. It got worse as the night went on. Believe me.

So, while I don’t believe there is set to be a collaboration between Joan Jett and Mötley Crüe, I do come baring good news for those fans who had been speculating regarding Y/L/N’s relationship with the hair metal band’s lead singer. So are they together? Are they dating? Though neither party will publicly state anything, I’ll leave you with my thoughts, my observations, and the oft spoke words of the man himself;

What the f*** do you think?

#vince neil #vince neil x reader #vince neil imagine #motley crue #the dirt #the dirt imagine #motley crue imagine #nikki sixx #tommy lee #mick mars #the angry lizard writes

219 notes · View notes

popculturebuffet · 5 years

Text

Analysis of X: Uncanny X-Men #159 “Night Screams!”

Happy Halloween! For our Halloween special, I take my first dive into Claremont’s classic X-Men Run proper, as Claremont’s future New Mutants partner Bill Sienkiewicz drops by just in time for the X-Men to battle Dracula for the soul of Storm! Get your stakes ready and join me after the cut.

Welcome everyone to my special Halloween Edition of Analysis of X. I love this holliday: Scary movies, adorable children in costume, more sugar than I probably need… it’s the best. And it’s on this sacred day I’ve decided to take a second look at one of my faviorite X-Men stories and see if it still holds up to me the second time around. I first heard about this story in the back of Wizard Magzine in this old beatup issue I got from my brother, and was blown away by the descrption of an event we’ll get to towards the end. When I finally read the issue years later thanks to an issue of Classic X-Men, it exceded my expectations, and hence here I am to see if it still holds up. And since the few bits of exposition needed can just be done as we go, let’s sink our teeth into “Night Screams”

We open on the Uncanny, the powerful, the misunderstood, the brave X-Men!... barging into someone’s apartment and being confused by the occupant. Naturally both parties are confused: The young lady because it’s her damn apartment and suddenly a blue elf, a smelly hairy Canadian, a metallic Russian, an African goddess and a masked teenager come rushing into her place. The X-Men are confused because this apartment belongs to their friend Misty Knight. Those of you who watched Netflix’s excellent Luke Cage series probably remember her from that. In the comics she’s not far off from where she ended up by the end of the Netflix/MCU partnership: a private eye who used to be a cop and has a robot arm, in the comics provided by Tony Stark because back in the 70’s and 80’s tony would make some sorta gadget for anyone who pulled a dump truck of money up to his house. As I mentioned in Excalibur, Chris Claremont never really forgot any character he ever had anything to do with, and since she was a major supporting character during his run on iron fist along with her partner in asskicking Colieen Wing, who you may remember as the best part of Iron Fist’s own Netflix series, he had the two pop up in his X-Men run during a time when they thought the professor and jean were dead, because no one bothered to pick up a fucking phone. As such Misty had apparently offered her place to the X-Men any time they were in the city proper… but herself didn’t pick up the damn phone and tell her in the past few months she got a roommate, so said roommate is understandably pissed off to find a bunch of strangers in her place.

As the above should make obvious, the young lady is Harmony Young, famous model and misty’s new roommate. At this time Mary Jo Duffy had taken over Luke Cage, at the time Power Man,’s book and, in an attempt to keep the book from being canceled, brought Iron Fist in as a second protagonist and made the book into a buddy picture with the two’s contrasting personalites and backgrounds playing off each other. Having read this run, it’s fantastic and well worth a read and is the backbone of later runs of Luke and Danny while creating one of the best friendships in all of Marvel. As for how the hell this relates to this story, Harmony is a supporting character from that run and at the time, Luke’s Girlfriend and thus moved in with Misty when Misty needed a roommate.

With the confusion cleared up the X-Men try to smooth things over, minus Logan who, now knowing he dosen’t have a fight on his hands is going to get drunk because logan frankly has three states: boning, drinking and killin, and Kurt’s already swooping in there, and while you’d think hitting on Luke Cage’s girlfriend would be dumb, Luke is not above a three way. I mean why do you think danny sleeps at his and jess’s place every other Sunday? Storm being the leader she is offers to leave, but Harmony, seeing three handsome young men and likely having an open relationship with Luke, decides what the hell and lets the X-Men stay. Kitty scoffs at her and.. oh god I’m going to have to talk about the Colossus and Kitty thing aren’t I? Fuck me…. Yeah for those of you who weren’t aware, Kitty had a crush on Colossus.. a grown man at the very least 6 years older than her. They eventually DID enter a relationsip, that THANK CHRIST, wasn’t sexual till Jim Shooter, in one of the few times he actually made sense as Marvel’s Editor in Chief outright told Chris to cut it out and broke the couple up himself by having Pitor fall for someone else. And while that whole romance was forced and rushed, it both ended an annoying subplot and gave us a DAMN good issue of Uncanny I’ll get to some day. We soon find out WHY the X-Men are in town in the first place:

I do like the story progression so far: it feels organic and the opening of the X-Men barging in on an apartment is a nice hook and the following pages quickly explain the situation without feeling too clunky about it. But yeah Kitty’s Parents want to see her and while as Ororo notes she dosen’t have anything to wear, Harmony being a true friend to this person she just met offers up her vast wardrobe which Kitty herself quickly gets herself a piece of. The two get dressed and head off to meet the Prydes. We then get a short scene of Cyclops, whose on vacation visitng his brother Alex alongside his space pirate dad. As you can tell i’m not really going that much into it as it’s only one page of the isssue and has nothing to do with the rest of the plot other than informing us Professor Xavier’s in a coma, which tells me why he wasn’t with the rest of the team. Back in NYC, Kurt is still flirting with Harmony when the team gets a call from Kitty... who wonders if Ororo got home okay. Kurt’s instantly put on alert because she’d told kitty she was heading straight back.. hours ago. And as we see bellow, she’s been attacked with two marks left on her neck... which can only mean one thing.. NEIL BREEN HAS KILLED AGAIN.. or you know vampires.

Storm is rushed to the hospital and Logan and PItor soon get the call thanks to Storm’s wallet to come get her. While the doctor wants to keep her overnight Storm is.. oddly calm, finding the night realixing and getting the feeling something’s watching her, but shaking it off. The fact she’s not CONCERNED about that or seems chipper after having her throat torn open just screams red flag don’t’ it? Storm returns home to rest , shooing the rest of the X-Men away and well. if you were wondering when the hell this turned into a vampire story besides the whole neck bites thing...

The scene is haunting and well done and Bill, since his last name is hard to spell and I’ve mangled enough names as is on this blog, does a fine job with it, portraying the horror of it as well as how entrhaled Ororo is well. IT’s this sort of moody atmospheric stuff that would serve him well when he became artist on New Mutants and thare’s damn good reason his run is where the book really starts to pick up steam. Kitty returns home.. and is greeted with the news Storm has turned ill. When kitty tries visting storm is afraid of the sunlight, has a mysterious scarf from an admierer with a large D on it, and flinches when Kitty’s star of david brushes up against her. Kitty, sensing the obvious heads off to do some errands. Later that night Ororo lets her her “lover” and the one behind all this...

Yup. I wasn’t lying or exaggerating in the teaser: The one behind all this is DRACULA. That Dracula, not some alien or some other vampire. The prince of Darkness himself has designs on Ororo. And if your wondering if this is just some one issue weirdness… NOPE. Around this time, Dracula had his own ongoing started in the 70’s, Tomb of Dracula and what I’ve read is excellent. As a result Dracula was a part of the Marvel Universe, had his own backstory and enimies, and fought the likes of Dr. Strange and Spider-Man and earlier this year was the center of a major plot in Jason Aaron’s Avengers run. But before he can turn her, help arrives..

IT’s kitty who got a nifty Van Helsing getup and a cross.. but in an intresting twist on the mythos the cross does nothing. But not for the by this point cliché reason of “we’re just not using that old chesnut”, no in the Marvel Universe one needs genuine faith for the religious symbols weakness to work… and as the star of david showed earlier, Kitty is Jewish .. but when Dracula tries to choke a bitch, it’s said star of David that saves her. Tragically, Storm is too brainwashed to run and leaves with Dracula, begging Kitty to forget her and leaving the poor child in tears as her surrogate older sister leaves with a monster, possibly forever and there’s nothing she can do to stop it. On a side note though nice entrance line. While it’s no “Begone monster you do not belong in this world!” it’s still pretty sweet.

The rest of the team burst in and Kitty explains what’s going on: that while she didn’t know it was DRACULA till now, she was supscious but rightly suspected the others wouldn’t belive her and Logan dosen’t, trying to write off the scarf as Harmony or Misty’s.. but Kurt shoots it down, stating that Kitty is no child and her word means as much as Logan’s own, with his own time in Bavaria telling him to not take vampires lightly.. ESPECIALLY Dracula. Even if Logan still isn’t buying it, Kitty does point out that wether she’s right or not, Ororo is too injured to leave out in the wild, let alone with some strange man who may or may not be Dracula. Given this is a superhero comic, a fight naturally breaks out, with Dracula summoning his wolves, where’d he purchase those, to fight while Kurt tries fighting the big man himself.. and quickly gets his fuzzy blue ass handed to him. Colossus and WOlverine take the wolves out and prepare for the big man himself.

As you can see Dracula is handing them their asses.. which is no surprise: not only are the X-Men two members short, and even if they weren’t Dracula would still be able to take them. It also helps ease him into this shared universe: the reason why he hasn’t been beaten for good with so many heroes out there is simple: besides having the cover of being so famous that most wouldn’t belive he’s real, he’s also really damn powerful and only one vampire hunter after him has any sort of powers, that being Blade who was introduced in Tomb of Dracula. And while he’s a vampire, he dosen’t have Drac’s broken number of extra powers.

With it now being clear given he fuck slammed Colossus that Dracula is out of their league Kurt suggests a straight up fight won’t work and they need plan B.. and with that we get the best scene in the issue, the one that made me want to read it in the first place.

Just as a recap, in a brilliant callback to a few pages ago, Wolverine tries, cleverly, to use his claws as a cross.. but as Dracula mocks him, it won’t work. Like Parappa the Rapper says you gotta belivie.. and unfortunately for Dracula, Kurt does in what is, to my suprise, the first time his religion comes up but it works well and adds a sizeable amount to his character. Sadly as fucking epic as this is, it only holds him off for a second and he soon sendds lightning after him because.. apparently he can do that now? I dunno. While this goes on Kitty runs into the castle which Dracula has morphed into his own kinda castle, and while Kitty dosen’t find dracula she does find an almost turned storm and readies a stake, though Ororo points out it won’t do much good.. and we get another powerful scene as Kitty decides she’s right.

While that goes on, the rest of the team presses on but have no more luck and soon Dracula has them beat and Storm arrives seemingly having slain kitty.. only to shed her Dracula outfit for her uniform and start kicking Dracula’s ass, kicking off an awesome fight between the two.

She ends up slamming him into a party where Drac, being a sore looser, tries to force her to submit.. but she stays her ground and he gets desperat holding a hostage to try and get her to submit

But as seen she will not and refuses to.. and Dracula admits defeat, realizing he was genuinely attracted to her and he’d have to snuff out what made her worthy of being his queen to do so. Granted he’s still a creepy mind rapist, but it’s still a nice character touch. He books it out of there, and being good at evading people as his solo would show, tells Ororo following would be a fools errand and givne how beaten down her team is , even with her back to give them the edge, he’s right. So for now he escapes, but the X-Men have one the night and Ororo is free and back to being just a mutant again and tearfully reunited with kitty at misty’s place.

With that touching scene done, our heroes runite with Harmony, with Misty and Coleen now present and celebrate their narrow victory. There’s also a quick stinger with Moira MacTaggert telling the X-Men xavier’s condition has gotten worse, but for the most part, it’s a happy ending as our heroes, however narrowly have won the day and I thankfully got this done before Halloween ended.

Final Thoughts: This issue is every bit as good the second time around, if not more so now I know who Harmony is and have read some of Dracula’s own title, though it’s not a necessity as none of the stuff from Tomb is important here, and Harmony is introduced well enough. This issue is a masterpiece, having atompsheric moody horror, the drawings well done and there’s so much I didn’t show that’s just awesome and Bill would only get better from here. The character work is also great as most of the X-Men get moments to shine. While wolverine is mostly there for his usaul schtick as is Colosus, how easily dracula manhandles them shows just how strong he is without feeling forced. But the real stars are Kurt, who gets one of his finest moments here and even after that fails still presses on anyway, Storm whose transformation is truly horrifying and whose ultimate victory is made all the sweeter and Kitty, whose at her best with: her youthful naivity matching well with her refusal to give up as she stares down both Dracula and her big sister in equal amounts. The issue is a must read for what’s left of this Halloween and every one after it and a great little done in one. Even with the btis of other storylines, it’s still easy to read and understand on it’s own and is one of the best one and done issues i’ve ever read and still holds it’s position in my eyes as one of the best X-Men stories period, taking what should be a rediculous premise and owning the hell out of it. A must read if i’ve ever read one.

#uncanny x-men #x-men #storm #wolverine #colossus #kitty pryde #nightcrawler #dracula #tomb of dracula #marvel comics #harmony young #misty knight #vampires #horror #halloween.

13 notes · View notes

thenightling · 4 years

Text

The Dodged Bullet

Warning: This is deliberately bad!

The dodged bullet:

The following is the horrific notion of what would have happened if The CW, Fox, or Syfy adapted Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman instead of Netflix. This is going to poke fun of common tropes of Fox and CW shows. See if you can spot them all.

I am going to deliberately write this very, very badly.

The generically attractive young man in his early-twenties walked toward the crime scene. He wore a long leather jacket, designer sneakers, expensive brand-name jeans, and a stylish and perfectly fitted black polo style shirt under the jacket. It was rumpled but just so as to hint at what a great body he had under it. He had thick, dark brown hair. Brown eyes, a smoldering gaze and a dazzling smile. He’s Caucasian and generically attractive. He’s thin but not rake thin, more like sexy male model thin. He’s got muscle tone.

At the moment he looked stoic, hands resting in his pockets. He crosses the yellow crime scene tape without anyone stopping him. No one questions his presence but he is not invisible. This is “grounded” in reality, folks.

The Sandman solves crimes! The Sandman is a private investigator with a secret. He is a real Sandman! Hidden in his jacket is a leather pouch which will probably get used maybe once or twice an episode (budgetary reasons). And he gets confused by certain social cues and pop culture references but otherwise he’s just a generic hot guy.

He’s probably portrayed by a Tom Mison type. He might be American. There’s an English accent but it’s so slight (so hidden by Americanisms) that it’s almost undetectable. He approaches the pretty, ninety-pound, college age female detective with perfect, blond hair. She looks up at him.

“Hey, Murphy.” She says in a friendly tone. Yes, Murphy is his alias. She thinks he’s just eccentric and thinks he’s The Sandman but he gets results!

“Detective Walker.” He smiled with obvious affection. He crushes on her, pines for her. But she mustn’t ever know the truth. It is forbidden for one of his kind to be with a mortal. Even if she is a Vortex. And her great power may one day destroy the world… or save it! That’s the real reason he was here, to watch her. He had never expected to fall in love with her…

The show has almost no scenes in The Dreaming and when there are it’s about 90% CG over green screen, like the Enchanted Forest sets of Once Upon a Time, or the under-whelming Hell of Lucifer. There’s probably a throne room with a starry night sky behind it, and an under-whelming “vast” library on par with Belle’s library in Once Upon a Time that will be shown very rarely.

“We’ve got another one.” She said gravely. “Eyes torn out. Pretty girl. Whoever this creep is- this predator must be stopped!” The implication here is the victims are all damsels who have been targeted by an evil man targeting them for misogynistic reasons. But don’t worry! The show is totally not sexist! Detective Rose Walker kicks ass! And in season four she’ll be raising her own long-lost little brother! Even though it’ll take her at least five seasons to learn Murphy’s secret (if she ever does).

“I thought the ‘me too’ movement would have at least reduced some of this.” She said with a shake of her head in disappointment at the world.

The line of dialogue doesn’t actually really make sense under easy scrutiny. Why would “Me too” actually make a serial killer reconsider his life choices? Oh, well, the audience doesn’t have enough time to question it.

“Me too?” The adorable, awkward, pretty “Murphy” questions.

“Boy! Where have you been? In a cave?” “Actually I was trapped inside a prison cell for a hundred and five years and before that I resided in another dimension.”

She rolls her eyes. “Not this again. Tell me you can at least figure something out with your ‘Dream powers’” she said cynically. He might have been insane and socially inept but he got results!

Morpheus knelt down next to the body and placed his hands on the corpse. There isn’t even any SFX for this. He’s just sensing something. He grunts in a sexy portrayal of sexy CW level pain.

“What? What is it?”

“I think I know who did this…”

“Who?”

“Corinthian…”

(Opening credits here. Maybe the opening riff of Enter Sandman by Metallica. No, wait, Fox and CW can’t afford that. It’s Mr. Sandman by the Charlottes! It kills the mood but everyone knows the song. You’ll be sick of it by episode five if you weren’t already. And it will get a LOT of use since the song is cheap / practically public domain.)

The next scene is not present day. It’s a flashback. And by flashback I mean a hastily put together set in Vancouver Canada. It’s probably someone’s private stables being passed off as a medieval village. No, wait. Its eighteenth century. There’s a sexy other character wearing slightly anachronistic style sunglasses hiding his eyes (No CG here, the production team figures the glasses are enough). In fact his eyes might not even be weird at all. He just likes sunglasses! There, that’s better, no wasted money here. He’s wearing a badly fitted white wig over white hair.

“My king,” the sunglassed man says with a bow. We have to be blunt for our easily distracted audience, so there’s the reminder that this is the dream king. “Thank you for letting me accompany you to the waking world. There are such delicious things here.”

“Yes, the food is rather pleasant.” Morpheus replies. His costume is decently fitted but obviously borrowed from another show, possibly a left over from Buffy The Vampire Slayer. Those props and some period costumes still get use. Isn’t Morpheus adorably oblivious, though?

Morpheus is wearing a dark blue frock coat and lace. His trousers are exceptionally tight to show off the actor’s perfect ass.

The Corinthian’s costume is cream colored. There was a behind the scenes fight and as small victory for the one crew member who actually read Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman in getting the cream outfit. Others working on the show wanted the costume to be black to make it more obvious he was the bad guy.

An attractive, tall, black man (probably American), under the age of thirty, is behind Morpheus. This is his loyal manservant, Lucien. But it’s totally not racist making the dreaming librarian / butler black when the show hasn’t had any black characters yet. No, it’s inclusive!

The attractive black man speaks. “My Lord, I think he intends to do harm to the mortals here.”

“Nonsense, Lucien. I’m certain it’s fine.”

The Corinthian wandered away from his master and he soon drags off attractive young female into an alley, hand over her mouth. No, The Corinthian isn’t gay anymore in this version. But it’s okay. Hob Gadling, Morpheus’ immortal friend (who now runs a bar for some reason) is gay! He’s very gay. In fact that’s the extent of his entire personality. But isn’t this diverse and inclusive?! And there’s no more problematic gay nightmare, even though in the original comics The Corinthian gets uncreated and the second Corinthian is a relatively decent guy for a nightmare.

After some persuasion Morpheus finally listens to Lucien and walks down into the alley. He stops in his tracks when he sees The Corinthian has killed the girl and his licking his fingers, having obviously already eaten her eyeballs (gotta keep that TV-14 rating!) He lets out a gasp. “Corinthian, what have you done?”

We cut back to present day and “Murphy” is walking into the bar owned by his friend, Hob Gadling . Hob sees him and smiles. “Murph, oh, honey, you look like Hell! Come sit down and tell me all about it. You know I love juicy gossip.” He says in a naisly, lisping voice.

Imagine this scene was written by some very straight guy whose only exposure to gay people were 1990s Will and Grace reruns.

Hob places a shot glass in front of Morpheus and Morpheus downs it quickly. “Have you seen Matthew?”

Matthew was Morpheus’ straight human friend and roommate. He had learned Morpheus’ secret in the pilot episode when Morpheus rescued him from a car accident using his dream magick. Ha! And you thought we’d have talking birds in this thing. Lol! No! Grounded, remember?

“Matt? Oh, sweetie, you can do better than him. I keep telling you, he’s just not your type.”

Morpheus raises an eyebrow but says nothing about the implication about his sexual identity. There will be a LOT of queer baiting on this show without confirmation in regard to his sexuality.

“I need to talk to him. One of my nightmares is loose in the city.” You can tell this was written by a New Yorker because they take for granted “The City” to mean New York.

“One of your Nightmares? Why couldn’t it be one of those sexy wet dreams?” Get it? Because if the character’s gay he has to always be horny!!! Ha-freakin’ –ha.

(Please know I don’t actually feel this way. I’m mocking bad TV writing. This whole thing is a spoof.)

There’s an awkward pause intended for the viewers to laugh.

“I don’t believe any water nymphs have escaped The Dream dimension.” Morpheus replied in confusion.

He calls it The Dream Dimension in the show because “The Dreaming” didn’t sound hip enough according to some executive.

“I’m afraid it’s The Corinthian. So now I have two problems.”

Hob nodded sympathetically. “The detective you might have to kill…”

“And now this.” This is an idiot proofed recap for people turning on the show late or just watching it in passing while doing other things or playing on their phone. CW does this sort of in-story forced, shoe-horned exposition all the time.

The episode plays out a little bit like an episode of Lucifer mashed into an episode of True Blood.

While they’re trying to find the killer, Detective Rose Walker meets Murphy’s roommate, Matthew, and the two hit it off while chatting about Murphy’s weirdness. They decide to start to date. As Morpheus has feelings for Rose that he won’t admit to this causes a strain between him and Matthew Raven (There’s that bird reference! What? That should be Lucien’s last name? Naw!) And between him and Rose Walker.

Morpheus lashes out rather than admit to what he is truly angry at and he and Matthew argue over something petty and this leads to recovering alcoholic Matthew to start drinking again as sad music begins to play.

Morpheus eventually finds The Corinthian and is forced to destroy him. He had to kill his own creation so he is kneeling in angst crying prettily while the sand left over from the uncreation slides through his fingers. Some new female cover of Queen’s Who Wants to live Forever? Is playing in the background. The original version is “too old” and too expensive for use. So here’s a very generic sounding cover done in a style that makes it blend in with every other pop song played during the forty five minute mark of a CW show’s run time (including commercial breaks).

The song plays as we cut to Matthew drinking alone sexily in an alley. He’s sweaty and wet, but he just looks like a wet fashion model. Morpheus is sexy crying over the sand that was the Corinthian, and Rose going to sleep prettily in her bed, no bed head here. Oh, and she sleeps in perfect makeup! There’s no scene where she even remotely looks like she’s out of makeup.

She’s having strange dreams but they look pretty mundane. Like real-world mundane. It’s her living room set that we probably saw a few minutes ago, just dimmer lighting and some haze to make it clear this is a dream. Because even with a show about The Dream Lord, dreams have to have an old fashioned camera fringe haze. Murphy is there with his back to her. He looks sad. He turns to look at her and she gasps. She sees a star (lense flare) from Murphy’s eyes in the dream as he looks at her in surprise like he wasn’t expecting her to see him. She wakes up with a gasp, and everyone in her apartment building also wakes up at the same time, signifying that their dreams were connected.

And so ends what was probably the third episode of CW (or Fox’s) The Sandman.

And that is pretty much how CW or Fox would have done The Sandman.

#The Sandman fan fiction #The Dodged Bullet

2 notes · View notes