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royallyprincesslilly · 4 years

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Title: Arranged {4}

Yahya Abdul Mateen II x OFC Nyorie Kane

Warning: Mild Cursing. Plot

Words: 2.7k

Summary: Yahya is thirty-three, and his friends and family all seem to believe that it is long overdue for him to have a wife. He’s been set up more times than he can count and with his busy schedule and rising Hollywood star, it is becoming even more difficult to meet people, well people who aren’t looking for a come up. In the beginning, he said he didn’t want anything serious; his motto was “I’m was here for a good time not a long time.” Then it became he didn’t want anything that would distract him from where he wanted to go and what he wanted to accomplish. Now that his fame is rising and he’s approaching a sweet spot in his career he decides what the hell the time might be right.

In comes “A Match”, an exclusive matchmaking company run by his best friend Ramel’s wife Tamika. He gives Tamika and Ramel free rein and all his trust to find him, someone, he’d mesh well with. Instead of going through her clientele Tamika has just the right woman in mind, her best friend, Nyorie. Things are done a little unorthodox at “A Match” though. This unconventional route is credited for a near-perfect success rate.

Note: I’ve only tagged those who have expressed to be on a forever tag list.

***None of the images are my own***

**Loosely Proofread/Edited**

**Interactive**

Need To Catch Up?| Chapter one | Chapter Two | Chapter Three

✧*.。:。✧*.:。✧*✧*.。:。✧*.:。✧*✧*.。:。✧*.:。✧*

-Chapter Four-

Three days later he was staring at a stack of papers that was the contract agreement. Included in the agreement was also the usual fee for services. Tameka was making bank especially if this was the standard fee for every client. Among the papers was an extensive explanation of what she did, what she didn’t do, how she did what she did and what was expected. There was a code of conduct as well as termination policies. Inside the welcome packet there he found all the information about the different stages and the steps in each stage. This was very detailed and when he assessed it all, it wasn’t a completely illogical way to approach dating.

Yes, it was absolutely nuts to agree to marry someone without seeing them, but the saying love is blind was coined for a reason. No, it probably was never meant to be taken so literal, but the truth was the same. Love was blind, love should be found and established with the purest cornerstones. His only hang-up was if this was something that was logical for him and who he was now. He wasn’t some local baker, or a teacher or even a city planner anymore. He was an actor. Now most places he went, he was recognized, approached and watched.

Yeah he could go incognito eighty percent of the time and he was glad for it but he’d come to accept the luxuries of life before were not his luxuries now. He’d traded privacy for paparazzi, and traded clipboards for scripts. He still hadn’t gotten over the differences in his life from a year ago to today.

The more he flipped through the papers and read them over carefully he thought more and more about what the road would look like moving forward with this. He thought about the kind of connection he would want with a woman and the likelihood of finding it like this. He went up and down and around it for what felt like hours. He talked himself into it ten times and out of it ten times. He’d even written a pros and cons list and had thrown it out and done it again too many times. By the time he’d come up with a decision he was fed up with thinking about it. He knew it was the fear of the unknown at this point. The only thing that was in his head at this point was doing the damn thing. So that’s what he told himself as he tapped out a text to Tameka.

MSG: Let’s do it Meeka. Let’s do the damn thing!

He shook his head and tried to shake off how ridiculous he felt. He knew he was ready for it, but he just had to get out of his head with it and allow whatever was meant for him to freely come.

MSG Tameka: All right then. Fill out the paperwork, bring it back, fax it, courier whatever you choose. Once that’s processed we’ll start your screenings. Be mindful we’re going to be digging deep into your personality. Truthful answers are the only answers acceptable, especially if you want success.

MSG: Got it. Thank you Meeka.

MSG Tameka: You’re like my brother Ya. Anything I can do to help, I’ll do it.

He’d known Tameka for over ten years. They were similar. In the beginning stages of Ramel’s relationship, he took it upon himself to get to know her to be sure she was right for his best friend. It didn’t take him long to be convinced she would be a good fit for Ramel. Since then they’d gotten closer and she really had turned into someone he considered a sister.

He sat there in his living room filling out the first page of information.

“Name; Yahya Abdul Mateen II. Nicknames; Ya, Hya. Date of Birth; July 15, 1986. Gender; grade A man baby. Family; mother and one brother, four sisters. Ethnicity and Race; Black and Proud. Height; six-three. Religion; Muslim. Gender you are seeking; female. Marital Status; Single. Income.”

It was there he first paused as he tried to think of a response. Was he supposed to put his current net worth, what he had in the bank, what he was averaging per movie? He was probably thinking about too deeply, but he didn’t know what to put, so he put something basic and carried on.

“Comfortable.” As he got to the second page it got a little more personal. There was a question asking about his family history then another inquiring about his blood type. After that, it went into physical illnesses or mental illnesses. When he saw the big leap from there to asking about communicable diseases he blinked because it wasn’t even page six and already things were getting real.

He spent the next forty minutes or so answering the second, third and fourth pages that asked everything from STDs to medications currently taking. It was pretty detailed which he understood. These were important questions to know before matching someone. He zoomed through the questions about the reason for his decision for matching, and what his expectations were. He’d set the bar pretty low. He wasn’t sure what to expect so he decided to expect nothing spectacular. You can’t be disappointed if you never really set your hopes up, right?

By page six the real hard-hitting questions began. “What are you looking for in an ideal match?” He thought it would be a difficult question, thought he would have no idea what to write but that wasn’t the case. He found himself writing away.

“A woman who is down to earth, funny, honest and smart. A woman who knows what she wants from life and isn’t afraid to go out and get it. a woman who is caring, understanding, passionate, supportive, ambitious. Someone who is silly and has a silly sense of humor and doesn’t take themselves seriously. Confidence is major for me, someone who loves music as much as I do, has a great attitude, positive, classy but definitely kinda hood.”

He reread it and nodded his approval and continued.

“What’s your type?” A wide smile spread across his face because he knew his type. He’d imagined her several times over the months. “Curvy and thick in all the right places, meat on the bones, beautiful lips, expressive eyes, nice smile, shorter than me, fashionable, black and proud in everything that means.”

Thinking about his ideal woman and had him thinking what if Tameka actually pulled it off and found someone that was just right. What if in a few weeks his ass found a wife and not just another ex. That tripped him up and had him stepping away from the paperwork for a few minutes to collect himself and his thoughts with a glass of Henny. It wasn’t that he wasn’t ready, or he was reluctant for change, it was the reality of a possibility.

When he returned to the papers he earnestly answered the remainder of the questions that ranged from a full six pages about him and his dreams, wants, desires and another six pages about his ideal mate and what he would want her dreams, wants and desires to be. When he was finally finished it was almost three in the morning and he was exhausted. He’d felt like he’d done a mental marathon. There were questions in this packet he hadn’t thought about in years and at all. he took that as a good sign. The more in-depth the questions the better the outcome, right?

~~~~~~~~~

A day later he was sitting in an office with a couple Tameka introduced as Dr. Rachel Abramson and Dr. Martin Abramson. They were in charge of mental and emotional screening and preparedness. His first impression was that he would sit in a comfy chair and discuss his thoughts and feelings about beginning the process. For the first hour that is exactly what happened. They had him begin and assured him now was the time to get all his questions out. So, since they wanted him to ask questions he did.

“Are the two of you really that good to have so many success stories? There has to be one story of complete failure.”

The two of them looked at each other and then back to him before they busted out laughing. After a few moments, they finished and Martin spoke first.

“Tameka said you’d be a little apprehensive about the process.”

“She sure wasn’t lying,” Rachel added.

“Ha-ha-ha, very funny. You can’t blame me, can you? This is pretty peculiar.”

“Okay here’s the thing. On a scale of normal and insane, this is insane when you think of it from a societal norm perspective. We’ve all been taught and conditioned that we have to do things one way in order to find the love and happiness we want and deserve. So we go our entire lives on this hamster wheel trying it over and over and over no matter how many times we fail. No matter how many times we don’t find that love or happiness we want but heartache or loneliness. At what point do you change your perspective? At what point do you start to wonder what are societal norms doing for me? Here we’re changing up the norms. There is no reason why a different approach cannot work,” Rachel finished.

“We’re doing a different approach for the same goal. The only difference is our approach actually works and it continues to work. We’re that good at what we do because of the process and the screenings, these chats. We now know you want to be a believer, but you have to be shown the way. That will go into your profile and into the decision for those we cross with you for a match,” Martin explained.

Taking a few moments for their words to register he nodded then shrugged. “All right. I’m here. Let’s do it.”

That was when they began to dig deeper pulling him to talk about his entire life story, relieve every decision he’d ever made, every experience. He thought about things he hadn’t thought about in years. They had a way of bringing deeper meaning to his experiences, his struggles. They gave him worst-case scenarios and stressful situations, questioned his decisions in relationships and life. They dissected everything and the whole time they wrote note after note and exchanged look after look. After another two hours, he realized just how deep this process got. He felt like he’d just gone through the most extensive counseling session he’d ever had.

“How do you feel?” Tameka studied him with a slight “yikes” face.

“Damn that was intense.”

“Yeah, Rachel and Martin really get in there and tear you apart and put you under a microscope then put you back together. Usually, everyone who sees them says they feel refreshed leaving.”

“Refreshed? Meeka I feel like I just got a soul cavity search.” She laughed and shook her head.

“Boy, you so stupid. Seriously, it’s all right. It’s like this for everyone,” she assured.

“Are all screenings like this?”

“I wouldn’t say that. This one usually puts everyone through a wringer, you’re facing a lot of things, it makes you doubt yourself; it’s supposed to. It’s part of the process. The worst is behind you. You have three more screenings and then we’ll move on to the fun stuff.”

“What exactly is the fun stuff?”

Tameka smiled widely and zipped her lips. He didn’t have a good feeling about whatever it was she was talking about.

Sure enough, four days later he’d felt like he’d actually gone through the wringer. He’d completed the following screenings that focused on his potential mate love languages and expectations, and sexual expectations and intelligence. It was definitely an intricate process. From what he could tell those he’d dealt with really knew what they were doing.

After a quick trip to New York for work and a trip with his brother and sister to Vegas for some downtime, gambling and silliness he felt refreshed.

Today he dribbled the ball around the court with Ramel and crew he tried to keep his mind off of things. Tameka said they would go through his responses and screenings and put together a complete assessment that they would then use to go through their database of potential women he would mesh well with. He knew the processes couldn’t be rushed but he was getting a little anxious after three days and no notification on the status.

He was a little off his game and Rashawn was taking advantage of that. He stole the ball and dropped a perfect fadeaway bucket. He stood there shaking his head.

“What the hell has got your mind so outta the game you let Rashawn of all people steal your ball?”

They laughed at him together and he had to admit he deserved it. He walked to the sideline and dropped onto one of the bleachers. His boys sat around him taking sips of their water.

“Is this about this matchmaking?”

Rashawn and Tyrell both sounded off. “Hold up, matchmaking? Are you getting set up?”

Dropping his head back he rubbed the back of his neck. He didn’t want them all to know in case it didn’t work out and he was in fact unmatchable.

“Yeah, I was trying something different, thought why not.”

“Okay. We didn’t even know you wanted someone. Why you ain’t say something?”

He shrugged and rolled his head around. “No reason.”

“So that’s why your jump shot is shit and your ball handling is even worse,” Tyrell chided. He laughed at the insult to injury, he was already feeling like crap.

“Man kick me while I’m down. Great.”

“Leave him alone. Tameka’s process is tough. In the early days when she was giving me the run down, she blew my mind with how detailed everything is,” Ramel defended.

“Right. Damn, I had no idea. After four days I felt like she’d unlocked a whole nother level to my personality I didn’t even know I had.” They all laughed but he wasn’t joking. He was woke before but now he was third eye woke.

“So you’re waiting for results now?”

“I’m waiting for them to finish analyzing my assessments. I think they’re screening me with potentials. I don’t even know.”

“You ready to meet someone? I mean you could have yourself a girl in a month’s time,” Rashawn voiced.

“He could have himself more than a girl in three months’ time,” Ramel corrected.

“Yeah, I’m ready. The interesting thing is throughout the whole process of them analyzing me and asking me every question ever invented it had me really seeing how empty my life has been and how stuck I was. It opened my eyes to show me what I had to offer and that I was ready to offer it.”

They all nodded fulling understanding what he meant. He was glad he wasn’t friends with men who ran from commitments and dogged out their women. He was glad he was surrounded by levelheaded mature men who sometimes acted like complete idiots behind their wives’ backs.

“Well, I hope Tameka can work some miracle because it will have to be one hell of a woman who keeps your attention cause God knows you got that ADD,” Tyrell piped up.

Again, they all laughed together, at his expense.

A few more days passed with him working even more. He went on more and more auditions and his name was being kicked around quite a lot. According to his agent and manager, his name was brought up a lot for different projects. The ones that had him super excited was the fourth installment to The Matrix and a Candyman remake. He grew up on Candyman and damn near tripped down the steps when he’d read the email about it.

The days passed quickly, and he traveled between NY, Miami and LA all for auditions, meetings, interviews, and photoshoots. he was busy but in the back of his mind, he wondered where he was in the process with A Match. The longer he went without hearing something, the more he worried that he was unmatchable.

As he was pulling into LAX from his recent trip to London Tameka’s message caught him off guard.

MSG Tameka: Great news. When can you come in?

His nerves went into high gear as one thing repeated in his head.

“So it begins.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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#arranged fic #yahya abdul mateen ii #yahya abdul mateen ii fanfiction #Yahya Abdul Mateen ii x reader #Yahya Abdul Mateen ii x you #Yahya Abdul Mateen ii x black reader #black fanfiction #slow burn fanfic

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moonwaif · 3 years

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FFXV Halloween Week 2020: Day 7

@ffxvhalloweenweeknsfw

Monster of the day: Witches

Theme: Spells/Potions

Scenario: Halloween Party (games, pumpkin carving, etc)

Mod’s choice: Black Cats/Familiars

NSFW: Costume play

Pairings: Gladnis

Rating: M

Tags: Sex Magic, No actual sex, Awkward Conversations, Getting Together, Paranormal Investigators AU, Enthusiastic Consent

(Also on Ao3)

---

As an official member of the C.D.D.S. (a.k.a. Chocobro Daemon Destroyers Squad, as dubbed by Prompto), Gladio has a pretty flexible relationship with the word “normal.” However, even he has to admit that nothing about the current investigation is anywhere near the realm of normal.

First there’d been that weird purple envelope with the heavy wax seal. Inside was a letter from one Ardyn Izunia, written in flowing script and kindly soliciting their services at Zegnautus Keep—an old castle, located somewhere in the distant mountains of Niflheim. This was also weird. Sure, the C.D.D.S. may have been well-known exorcists in Lucis, but they weren’t exactly world-renowned. On top of that, Izunia claimed to be an acquaintance of Lord Regis, yet Noct didn’t know him. Gladio didn’t know him. Neither did Ignis, or any of Lord Regis’s old acquaintances. And when Prompto did a websearch, it came up empty.

That probably should have been a sign, Gladio thinks, striding through the castle halls. He glances at the giant portrait of Izunia smirking down at him, framed by cobwebs and moldering tapestries. Its eyes seem to follow Gladio as he passes, its smile shriveling in the shadows. The real Izunia had been just as disconcerting when they’d met him. But Noct had been in a slump since his father’s death. Noct had been depressed. That meant Ignis and Prompto were depressed too, and this seemed like a good chance to get away from it all. Besides, Noct was curious. He wanted to know more about this mysterious acquaintance of his father. So they stuck around, and when they were unexpectedly joined by the Nox Fleuret siblings, who Izunia had also commissioned—well, they figured the more the merrier and tried to be on guard.

What catchy name will Prompto give this particular case, Gladio wonders? Something about hubris, maybe. Something about old gods. Before anything specific can crystallize, Gladio is already at the set of massive, iron-laid doors. They groan as he yanks them open and steps into the castle library.

Ignis is still exactly where Gladio left him—hunched over a desk, hidden behind a stack of books. “How are they?” he asks, not even bothering to look up.

“Stable,” Gladio answers, “at least for now. The curse on Ravus is spreading. Luna still isn’t responding. Cindy’s looking after them.”

“And still no sign from Noctis?”

“The planchette hasn’t moved in the last half hour.”

“Dammit!” Ignis slams the book closed and tosses it aside. He makes a steeple with his hands, pinching the bridge of his nose. “We should never have come here.”

Gladio draws up behind Ignis’s chair. In the dim light, he can see loose papers full of obscure runes, time-weathered pages penned in tightly-scrawled ink. If this were a normal gig, they’d have wrapped everything up by now. They’d have subdued the spirit, and if that wasn’t possible, exorcised it. The client would be shoving fistfuls of money at them and weeping tears of joy. Ignis would have food on the grill. Gladio would be setting up camp for the night. Prompto would be complaining about EMF detectors and other technical jargon while uploading the latest footage to their blog. And Noct would have been loafing around, watching all of them with a contented smile, asking when dinner would be ready.

Gladio gives Ignis’s shoulder a squeeze. “What’s done is done—no use beating ourselves up over it. We’ve gotta keep our heads clear if we're gonna help Noct.”

Ignis sighs heavily. “You’re right. I’m sorry, Gladio. I lost myself for a moment.”

“Don’t sweat it. Now are you sure you haven't found anything?”

Ignis drops his hands to leaf through a book. “Nothing about those marks on Ravus’s arm, or what could be strong enough to entrap the most powerful medium in Tenebrae.”

“What about the portal?”

“No definitive answers, but nothing that contradicts our initial theories, either. Noct and Prompto are most likely caught between the two realms.”

“Which means Luna’s still our best shot at reaching them. Damn.”

“About that . . .” Ignis shifts in his seat, turning to face Gladio fully. “There is one thing—an old tome, written in Solheim runes.”

Gladio perks up. “You think there’s something in there that could help us get to Noct?”

“Possibly. There is . . . a spell.” Ignis removes a book from the stack. It’s dark and fat. Any markings on the cover have been completely worn away. “A ritual, to be precise. It enables the caster to send spiritual energy to a soul trapped between Eos and the spirit realm.”

“All right! I knew we could count on you, Iggy.”

Gladio claps him on the shoulder. Ignis slumps under the weight. “I’m afraid it’s not that simple.”

There’s something about Ignis’s expression that Gladio can’t put his finger on, but he doesn’t have time to parse it. "Which components are we missing? Anything we can substitute?"

"We have all the necessary items. It’s just, this spell—well, it requires two people."

Gladio nods. "Cool, so we'll tag team it out."

Ignis winces. "I really wouldn't be so quick to say that if I were you."

"Why? Does it require a sacrifice?"

"Of sorts.”

Gladio raises a brow. Ignis closes his eyes. When he opens them, it’s with steely resolution.

“It's a book of sex magic, Gladio."

---

It takes less than five minutes to move all the furniture, less than ten to finish drawing the array around the bed. After all, Ignis isn’t the high witch of the Lucis Caelum clan for nothing. He lights the candles with a snap of his fingers while Gladio sets out the bowls of sylleblossom petals and animal fat—six in total, one for each of the Astrals. Then both of them step into the array.

Gladio removes his jacket. He suppresses a shiver as Ignis draws his thumb along his chest and abdomen, leaving behind a maroon sigil. He stays very still as Ignis unbuttons his own shirt, and when it’s his turn to copy the sigil, he tries very hard not to stare at Ignis’s pecs, or the freckles on his stomach.

Ignis clears his throat. His entire face is red, from his neck to the roots of his hair. “Next we present the offerings. If you don’t mind, I can go first.”

“Be my guest.”

Ignis reaches into the pocket of his trousers. “This pendant was given to me by Lord Regis when I was still a child, in honor of my appointment as the high witch’s apprentice. I have since kept it with me out of respect for the Lucis Caelum line as well as for good fortune. I offer it today as a token of gratitude and good will to the Astrals and to the elements, that they may grant Lord Noctis their aid.”

He sets the pendant in one of the bowls of sylleblossoms (Gladio definitely does not admire the muscles in his shoulders and back when he bends over).

Gladio reaches into their satchel of supplies to remove his own offering. “I brought cup noodles.”

Ignis stares at him.

“Um.” Gladio shifts uneasily. “These delicious noodles are for the Astrals, so that—”

“Just put it down,” Ignis snaps. “In one of the bowls.” He waits until Gladio is finished. When he speaks again, his voice is somewhat softer. “Gladio, before we go any further, are you sure about this?”

Gladio squares his shoulders. "You said it should be the two people closest to the target of the spell. Out of all those conscious and present, that's you and me."

"I know, but you shouldn’t feel obligated. There may be other ways. I could keep looking. I could—”

"Ignis. I want to do this."

Ignis exhales deeply, with a sort of resignation. "Very well."

"What about you?” Gladio asks. “Are you good? If not, me and Cindy are pretty tight. She hasn't known Noct for that long, but maybe if I talk to her, she and I could—"

"No.”

The response is forceful—loud, even. Ignis pauses to adjust his glasses.

“The principal caster should be an experienced magic user,” he continues calmly, “which is me. And if it has to be anyone, I'd rather it be the two of us."

Gladio decides not to read too much into that last statement, but he does feel a little smug.

"So," he asks, "what next?"

"Eager, are we?" Ignis remarks dryly. "Just stand there, for now. And follow my lead."

He turns to retrieve two goblets from the bedside table and hands one to Gladio. The liquid is fragrant with cloves and other herbs. Next, Ignis links their arms together, so that they're each holding the goblet before the other's lips.

"Repeat after me," Ignis says. "Ic bescence þe mīn ferþ . . ."

Gladio repeats, understanding only every other word. But he trusts Ignis, so when the goblet tilts toward his lips, he drinks until it's drained.

"Now then." Ignis's entire torso is flushed now, and Gladio is sure it has little to do with the wine. "I suppose this is the part where we go to bed."

"If that's what the spell says," Gladio concedes.

The mattress creaks as they both take a seat on the edge. Ignis perches very stiffly, arms and legs drawn close to his body.

"So." Gladio leans back on one hand, stretches his legs—pretends to be much more relaxed than he really feels. "How specific are the details of this spell?"

"Any act of intimacy will suffice," Ignis says quietly. "So long as the fertile essences are spilled by both parties."

Well then, Gladio thinks. It shouldn't hurt to look, right? He is, after all, an expert in looking at Ignis—though mostly through stolen glances, or carefully neutral gazes. Now he lets his eyes roam freely. Ignis is slender without his shirt—his shoulders broad and sinewy, his waist narrow. Myriad freckles and moles pattern his skin. Gladio wants to reach out and run his hands over every single one. Instead, his eyes snap up to Ignis's face. Ignis stares back, expression inscrutable. He leans forward, and Gladio inches toward him, arm raising instinctively as he prepares to—

"I've never done this before," Ignis blurts.

Gladio falls back. He blinks, then scratches his head with a chuckle. "Yeah, this is my first occult sex ritual, too."

"No, I mean, I've never done this with anyone, ever—being intimate."

Oh.

"Is that a problem?" Ignis presses.

"Of course not," Gladio says. "I'm just . . ."

Ignis's lips curve in a rueful smile. "Surprised? The role of the supreme high witch doesn't allow much time for romantic escapades. Unfortunately, I'm not very experienced. I hope it won't be too unenjoyable for you."

He says this with his typical flat, sarcastic affect, but there's something tender underneath. Something dark and edgy.

"I'm sure I'll enjoy it," Gladio assures him. "You're perfect, Iggy. Everything you do is perfect. But are you really okay with this? Kind of an intense first time."

"I'm okay with it. Actually, I . . ."

He pauses, gaze darting to the floor. Gladio waits with entirely feigned patience. By the time Ignis looks back up, his entire body feels like it's on fire.

"I've always wanted it to be you," Ignis says.

A raspy, trembling breath escapes Gladio's lips. With it goes the last few tattered shreds of his composure. "Iggy. Fuck, I—I'm gonna take such good care of you. I want to make you feel good, Iggy."

Ignis takes Gladio's hands and guides them to his waist. "I know," he says. "I trust you."

#my stuff #gladnis #gladiolus amicitia #ignis stupeo scientia #gladiolus x ignis

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jupitermelichios · 4 years

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So I decided to rewatch Suicide Squad and I have some thoughts...

This isn’t really a review so much as it’s just a series of thoughts and impressions. I will say that while it’s still one of the worst made films I’ve ever seen, it’s never boring, which is by far the biggest sin a film can commit. It’s bullshit but it’s consistently interesting bullshit which makes it better than something like Fant4stic, which is as bad and incoherant but also just incredibly dull. I don’t think this could ever have been a good film, there was too much massively wrong with it before shooting even started to have been salvagable, but I do think it could have been a lot more coherant if it hadn’t been for the reshoots, re-edits, re-edits of re-edits and all the the other stuff that happened to it post production. Unlike something like BvS, I get why some people liked this one.

On that note, while I am going to end on a few possitives this basically a roast so if you don’t want to read about a film getting picked apart, this probably won’t be your jam. But if like me you find critiques of bad movies cathartic, read on. I’m not the first person to do this, but I’ve spotted some stuff I haven’t seen anyone else talk about so hopefully there’ll be something new for you.

All the dialogue is just slightly off in a way that’s hard to pin down, in the way that a lot of comprehensible stuff written by computers and neural networks is just slightly off. It’s got that phishing email or pornbot quality to it. Literally the fourth or fifth line in the film is Griggs saying about the prison rations, “...Everything a growing young man needs like you”, which isn’t nonsense, but is clearly wrong, and a lot of the lines have that quality to them.

In a similar vein, Deadshot’s daughter is written like she’s five or six, but the actress looks about twelve. I actually went and checked how old she was when this released, because I know white people are often wildly bad at judging the ages of black kids and I’m bad at judging ages in general, but no, she was 12 or 13 when this was shot, so why’s she written like a toddler? She doesn’t give a good performance (which is not the actresses fault, Will Smith barely gives a good performance in this and he can do this shit in his sleep, there’s no way a kid could have risen above the terrible script and direction) which makes it even worse, because you’ve got this pre-teen delivering dialogue written for a kindergardener in a way that feel like it’s maybe the first time she’s ever seen the script, and it makes what is otherwise one of the most competant scenes in the movie feel just as off as everything else.

The Joker. A lot of people have written a lot about Leto’s Joker but I want to add two things to the discussion I haven’t seen talked about much before. Firstly, before the electro-shock torture and acid bath, he and Harley have no romance. Like, explicitly, there is no romance, or even cammeraderie there. He’s her patient. She’s his jailer. He didn’t seduce her, he just tortured her until she gave in. That’s literally shown in the film. Even after the torture when she’s now on side he still really doesn’t like her, and not in a Paul Dini BTAS he doesn’t like her but he also wants her around kind of way. He doesn’t want her in his life. He orders her to leave him alone and she fucking stalks him. That’s not even subtext, she is specifically his stalker, because apparently the solution to the relationship being abusive was to retconn Harley into also being a creep as though that somehow solves something.

Secondly, Joker isn’t smart. Not only is he no longer emotionally intelligent (and comics Joker is many terrible things but he’s probably the most emotionally intelligent character in DC, that’s a lot of what makes him so dangerous because it’s how he manipulates people) he’s not intelligent full stop. His great plan for breaking out of Arkham? Some of his goons from the outside literally just shoot their way in to get to him. Even leaving aside the fact that Arkham apparently isn’t set up to deal with that kind of violence in this world despite Batman having been opperating for a decade, that’s not a clever plan, and it’s not Joker’s plan. 'Hope some of my dudes are loyal enough to come get me’ isn’t any kind of escape plan, and nothing we see after that point suggests that this was a moment of weakness. Joker just straight up isn’t very bright in this, which is weird because that’s one of the few genuinely consistent character traits he has. He’s no Riddler, sure, but he’s really smart and that makes him hard to contain.

Ayer made Harley functionally a sex worker in this, and it doesn’t actually matter that there’s absolutely nothing wrong with sex work or that sex work is real work, because David Ayer definitely thinks there is, and also really really hates women. David Ayer hates women so goddamn much. The only thing Slipknot does in the entire film apart from die is hit a woman just for being a woman.

When Waller arrives at Belle Reve, Croc is doing push ups. And that’s fine, it’s a classic movie shorthand for ‘bored prisoner is also fit and strong’, but the actor isn’t actually doing pushups. He’s got one knee tucked under his body to support his weight, and is clearly actually just sort of bobbing his head. What I suspect happened is that the prosthetics on his arms and chest were too heavy to allow that kind of movement, which would tie up with the stiff way he holds his arms throughout the film, but he’s not even bothering to pretend very hard and it adds to this pervading sense of off-kilter wrongness the film has.

Rick Flagg is supposed to be ‘the best special forces opperative this country has’, but he’s... really bad? He’s no use in any of the fights, he’s incapable of working with a team and has zero interpersonal skills, and when he’s assigned to be a bodyguard, he immediately starts fucking his client which is like, bodyguarding rule 1. He’s really bad at his job. (Which would be fine if the explanation was that he’s a fucking psychopath who’s 100% willing to just murder a civilian in the line of duty, but he’s meant to be Hannibal Smith more than Dirty Harry, and also if he is here because he’s a psychopath, why did Amanda Waller assume June Moon would be into that?!) He even has to be blackmailed into joining the opperation, so he’s incompetent, unprofessional, causes unecessary conflict, and isn’t even loyal to the project, so why him and not, I don’t know, literally any other character?

On the subject of June Moon, she goes (alone) on an archeological dig in a rainforest somewhere, finds a cave full of human remains and ancient artefacts, and literally her first action is to deliberately smash one of the artefacts, presumably just to see what would happen? IDK! We never get any explanation for that, but it’s definitely meant to be deliberate and not accidental when she smashes it! Why are archeologists in movies all so terrible?!

People have joked a lot about the fact that the movie changes the purpose of the squad from ‘plausibly deniable black ops, especially on American soil’, to ‘punching Superman’ but kept Captain Boomerang on the team, but there is actually an explanation given. A really really stupid explanation. Amanda Waller says that he’s there because ‘he faced down a metahuman and survived’, referring to him surviving being arrested. By the Flash. Who is famously non violent, and in fact in the next film in the series specifically says he’s never fought someone. So Boomer is on the team because he didn’t die when Flash picked him up and carried him to a police station, and Amanda Waller thinks that’s some kind of achievement. Like that isn’t the case for literally everyone the Flash has ever caught. And Flash is a street level hero, so that’s a whole lot of muggers and purse snatchers who are apparently capable of fist fighting Superman by Waller’s logic.

(On the same note as the Joker, Waller is also now incredibly stupid, but she’s mostly stupid for plot related reasons, so it sort of gets a pass? It gets more of a pass than the Joker at least, because making him comics-smart wouldn’t have necessatitated changing anything else about the film)

Re: Waller’s stupidity, her whole plan for recruiting El Diablo to the squad is... show him a video of him setting fire to some dudes. That’s it. She doesn’t even speak to him, she literally just holds up the video to the little window in his tank and seems surprised when that by itself isn’t enough.

And then when Flagg is like ‘hey let me try persuading him with actual arguments instead of just a weird video’, Diablo’s response is “You think you’re the first person to ask? I won’t do it. I’m a man not a weapon”, which gives us the amazing insight that in Ayer’s version of the DCU, there are apparently just... other Taskforce Xs running around. Other government agencies recruiting metahuman soldiers. So what exactly was the point of the half an hour or so of footage of her persuading the brass to go along with it? Because apparently they’re fine with this if every agency is doing it!

Tone? What even is tone. Griggs both has an antagonist but banter-y relationship with and brings cookies to the prisoners, but also he tortures them and is implied to be sexually abusing Harley, and like... you can’t have it both ways, Ayer. This is a one or the other situation. They can’t have a fun and jokey relationship with a man who is explicitly torturing and abusing them. Tone. You need to pick a fucking tone!

The decision to add a subplot about Deadshot being involved in a custody battle with his ex-wife was a fascinatingly terrible choice, and honestly tells you a lot about Ayer’s relationship to MRA talking points. Like, we know nothing about Deadshot’s wife except that she raised a cute well adjusted kid, so probably a pretty good parent, and that she doesn’t want her daughter to be spending time with a MASS MURDERER! So definitely a good parent! The comics just kind of handwave away Zoe’s mom most of the time, which was the right choice, because Ayer wants us to be on Deadshot’s side here, but it’s literally a choice between "a serial killer but you take credit cards” and a normal loving parent and somehow he thinks serial killer is the right answer? WTF happened in Ayer’s life that he thinks this is a choice where we side with Deadshot?! And it’s not even visitation rights or anything, Deadshot wants full custody. And the film thinks he’s in the right!

Not once, at any job I have ever had, one of which was a tourist attraction that required all visitors to wear a pass, have I ever seen someone wear a visitors pass on their sleeve. Not once. And it’s honestly such a good summary of the pervading wrongness of this film. This doesn’t feel like it was made by people. It feels like it was made by middlingly intelligent algorithms trying to pass as human.

Someone please tell me what the fuck any of this set is supposed to mean. The pose feels deliberate, but it’s not invoking anything I can see except the hanged man from the Ryder-Waite tarot deck, the halo of knives almost looks like it’s pseudo-religious imagery except that it’s not a full halo, the circle is incomplete on one side because of a broken piano, does the piano mean something? What about the babygrows, do they mean something? Does the Joker... want kids? Kill kids? Think Harley’s pregant? What the hell is any of this supposed to mean, and if, as I suspect, it was never supposed to mean anything why the fuck did they go to the trouble of making it?! What exactly does the hours this took to put together add to the movie?

David Ayer has a really weird relationship with both gang culture and latino gang culture specifically. He always feels the need to shoehorn them in somehow, and it’s this weird love-hate relationship where he apparently thinks latino gangs are so cool they have to be in everything, but is also so fucking racist he’s incapable of having a latino character who isn’t in a gang. Also in order to shoehorn them in here, he basically removed all of Joker’s henchmen (except for one scene which serves no narrative purpose) and replaced when with generic racist-stereotype LA gangs.

The fact that Griggs just hands Harley the phone in front of all the other guards and soliders was A Choice. Made even more so by the fact that Griggs never actually pay off. He gives Harley the phone, she tells him he’s “so screwed now”, and then... nothing. He’s just gone for the rest of the movie. He’s not even in the epilogue back in prison scenes.

I fucking love that the first thing Waller does is tell the world’s best assassin her real name. That is just... *chefs kiss* Everyone in this film is so fucking stupid.

I knew it was coming. I knew it was coming and I remembered the line perfectly, and I still had to stop the film because I was laughing too hard for “Ah would advise naht gettin’ killed by her, her sword traps the souls of its victims”. It’s the ‘that wizard came from the moon’ of film dialogue, and no one could have made it work, but the southern accent is really what makes that line delivery. I don’t know why, there’s just something about it in that drawl that it just endlessly hilarious.

It really is impressive how every character in this manages to be an offensive stereotype, sometimes multiple offensive stereotypes at once.

I love how Flagg’s right-hand woman is a samurai with a magical possessed sword that traps the souls of the damned who also isn’t military and refuses to speak English most of the time, but the squad are too weird for him. “You won’t believe it, this guy Boomerage, he’s got these bent stick things, and when he throws them they come back! I am freaking out, I can’t deal with this. Oh hi Katana, trap any damned souls lately?”

Harley is explicitly malicious in this in a way no other version of Harley has ever been, which is a Freudian nightmare when you combine it with her also being more sexualised than ever, and more infantalised than any version outside the Arkham games. Someone get Ayer a goddamn therapist. (Also in the vein of everyone being dumb in this, Harley is now an absolutely terrible psychiatrist and all her diagnoses are explicitly wrong, so that’s fun.)

The fucking pink unicorn-bundle of money switcheroo. There’s nothing to say on it that hasn’t already been said but holy shit. How do you fuck something up that bad? How? It’s like looking into Chekov’s nightmares and finding a pink stuffed unicorn staring back.

I love the way the soliders just come and go in this. Are they dead, are they alive, have they abandonned the cause? Why the fuck knows? Certainly not the editors!

I love how we’re supposed to be really sad about El Diablo being dead, but not care that Croc is seemingly directly underneath the explosion and definitely about to die, that’s fun.

I need to know if it was Ayer or Cara Delavigne’s choice to make Enchantress be just.. doing a little dance. Duing all the ‘tense’ moments. Because there are probably things which undercut tension more than the bad guy having a bit of boogy, but not many.

Enchantress gets so many costume changes, and I want to believe that they’re all from different versions of the film but I honestly think it was deliberate and I need someone on in the design department for this movie to tell me why because it add nothing.

I think the best thing about the stupidly on the nose liscenced soundtrack is that it just disappears once they arrive in Midway city. After spirit in the sky it’s original music all the way until the final scene. The great soundtrack DC stans insist this film has is literally only in the first 50 minutes and the last 2 of a 2hr+ movie.

The glorification of abuse in this is... seriously fucking something else. Twilight doesn’t have a patch on this. 50 Shades of Grey doesn’t have a patch on this. This shit is disgusting, and the fact that they pushed so hard to get it a child friendly rating is just morally bankrupt.

Possitive note to end on:

The dialogue is way too on the nose and exposition dump-y but the scene in the bar works pretty well. It fulfils its role in the story, and gives us a decent dose of team bonding.

Deadshot and Harley have great chemistry, and Boomer is perfectly cast, in a way that makes me really hopeful for James Gunn’s take on the team. A writer who knows how to write friendships could do a lot with the three of them, and they’ve been the core squad since 2011 so they’re the ones who matter. It probably helps that whatever Will Smith’s faults as an actor, you could cast him opposite a housebrick and they’d somehow have great chemistry.

#suicide squad #roasting suicide squad #bad movies #you could build whole academic careers just talking about all the things that went wrong in the production of this film #and some of it was studio interferance for sure #but a lot of it was ayer being incompetant #and trailerpark being incompetant #and kate hawley somehow being incompetant despite being fine on other movies #likewise john gilroy the creditted editor #lindsay graham and Mary Vernieu doing the worst jobs of their respective careers #i'm glad this movie didn't tank the careers of the creatives #and so upset it didn't tank the career of david ayer #how can you write this and fucking Bright and still have a job as a writer #how

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revisitingstoneybrook · 4 years

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#8 Boy-Crazy Stacey: Chapter 11

Stacey throws herself a pity party, Mary Anne’s not amused and Byron Pike is a magical child who fixes everything.

Now we have a postcard from Mary Anne to Dawn. And she spends most of it venting about Stacey. She tells Dawn that Stacey's still being a pain in the neck but she kind of feels bad for her, because she saw Scott kissing another girl. And Mary Anne's getting in touch with her wild side I guess, because she's thinking of buying another bikini from this store called If the Suit Fits, which is where Stacey got her's. Richard won't mind because he'll still be zonked out from the pot party to end all pot parties Sharon's throwing while the kids are gone.

After signing the postcard, Mary Anne throws in a PS and a PPS. The PS tells Dawn that *gasp* Stacey's been dying her hair! Bad girl! The PPS instructs Dawn to "Destroy this card in California!" Which looks incredibly funny, considering it's something so crazy to write and it's in Mary Anne's loopy script. And I don't think Dawn would take too kindly to destroying a card made out of paper, Mary Anne. That's spitting on the grave of the tree killed to make that postcard! She should have said "Recycle this card in California!" or "Burn this card, then scatter the ashes in the ocean in California!" At least that way, it won't rot away in a landfill somewhere.

Anyway, the morning after Stacey sees Scott kissing a girl who's more beautiful and has better boobs than she does, she's all mopey and sad and decides she can't show her face at the beach. After breakfast, she fakes a headache and tells Dee she doesn't want to go. Miraculously, the Pike parents are actually going with the Pike Army to the beach for like the third time since arriving in Sea City. I guess they remembered this is supposed to be a family vacation. At least this means Mary Anne won't be stuck watching the kids all by herself. Dee, completely oblivious to the drama happening between the girls, tells Stacey that's fine.

Mary Anne, on the other hand, is not too happy. While they're in their room later, she finally grows a spine (for the first time in this book) and confronts Stacey, instead of brooding about it or venting to Kristy or Dawn in a postcard. Mary Anne calls Stacey out and tells her she can see right through her bullshit:

“Thanks for sticking me with all the kids again. You know, last night you dragged me around to about a billion stores looking for a present for Scott. Then when you saw him with that girl, you practically blamed ME. You are so rude. The least you could do is apologize.”

Wow, Mary Anne! You get a gold star!

And some applause!

Stacey offers up a feeble apology, but Mary Anne isn't done yet, bitch! “If you actually had a headache, well, that would be one thing, but it's Scott isn't it?” Mary Anne shakes her head when Stacey admits that it is indeed Scott and now it's Stacey's turn to be mad. She apologized, dammit! Isn't that enough for Mary Anne? Geez! Stacey doesn't get why Mary Anne is still pissed off and reminds her that the boy mother's helper will probably be around, so she'll have help anyway.

But Stacey? He's got his own kids to watch, it isn't HIS job to help Mary Anne, he's just doing something nice because he sees she's got her hands full with eight kids. You're the one getting paid to do that and for the entire trip, you've blown off your responsibilities to go flirt with a lifeguard and feed him with the Pikes' food and sodas, leaving Mary Anne to cover for your ass. Mary Anne has every right to be mad at you.

Mary Anne informs Stacey his name is Alex, and Stacey responds by saying he looks like such a nerd. Did I mention Stacey is a BITCH in this book? She hasn't even met him! Mary Anne says he isn't a nerd, he's funny and nice, and as far as I'm concerned, he's a saint for constantly helping her out when Stacey abandons her. Before Mary Anne can start to chew her out again, Stacey asks, "Who are those kids, anyway?"

Mary Anne says their names are Kenny, Jimmy, and Ellie, and Alex is indeed a mother's helper and DON'T CHANGE THE SUBJECT STACEY! Stacey plays dumb about it and Mary Anne is about ready to do this now:

Once again, Mary Anne informs Stacey that she's made her do all the work so far and Stacey, being so high on herself, denies it. With that, Mary Anne storms downstairs and Stacey chases after her, still apologizing. You're still too little and too late, Stacey! Mary Anne awesomely ignores Stacey and tells the Pike kids to follow her, as their parents beat them to the beach. Yeah, I'm sure they got an early start to make some bacon on the beach and I don’t mean the kind Homer is thinking about:

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So yeah, Stacey stays at home and as the kids are leaving, Byron decides he wants to stay at home too, saying he wants to rest. Maybe it's all the eating he apparently does that's making him so tired! Stacey has him go tell Mary Anne and when he returns, he asks if they can go for a walk. Stacey says yes, then remembering she's supposed to have a "headache," says they should go somewhere quiet. Nice save. She leaves a note for everyone else and follows Byron.

They end up on the bay side of Sea City, where the water is much calmer. And Byron goes right in the water. Turns out he was just afraid of the big waves. See, girls? He wasn't afraid of swimming, just the ocean. Byron probably noticed they were freaking out over him not swimming, so he took Stacey over here to shut her up. I'm sure he wouldn't want all the BSC members discussing him in minute detail at their next meeting.

Stacey encourages him to go out further in the water and tells him it's ok to be afraid of things a little. Because if you aren't afraid, you might take dangerous chances. But if you're TOO afraid, then you'll probably miss out on a lot of fun.

Byron and the calm water in the bay ends up calming Stacey down to the point where she decides she can go to the beach, she just has to avoid Scott. And I guess Byron is some kind of magical child because Stacey does a lot of thinking and realizes she was wrong the whole time about Scott and Mary Anne was right. He didn't LUV her, he just thought of her as a friend (*cracks up* Yeah, keep deluding yourself, McGill). And he really was too old for her. Stacey feels like an idiot for thinking her LUVed her, when they never kissed, or held hands, or went out on a date. But she decides she doesn't hate him, because he was nice to her and they "had fun.” Fetching him sodas and listening to him call you Princess is having fun? Um, ok. And he gave her his whistle!

She's still upset that Scott's probably already forgotten about her and wouldn't care if she avoided him because the next girl in line will just step up. I don't get it...is she happy she's had this epiphany or is she upset that he was a douchebag who led her on? Or both?

After lunch, Byron says he's ready to go to the beach, so Stacey brings him. And since the BSC loves comparing themselves and their issues to the ones their clients are having, Stacey says they're both scared but determined. As they arrive, the lifeguards switch shifts and Scott's part of the group that's leaving. Whew. Ok, and now Stacey says she doesn't know whether to be happy or upset.

Byron immediately goes into the (knee-deep) water with Adam and Jordan and I guess that's good enough for them. Stacey sees them and reflects on how much she's missed the kids too, since she had been spending all her time hanging around Scott. Spoken like a true BSC member. All her revelations are just coming one after the other here! Coming one after the other...I'm sure the Pikes are familiar with that, if you know what I mean.

#babysitters club #boy-crazy stacey #stacey mcgill #bsc #snark

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clouds-of-wings · 4 years

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I wrote this like 3 weeks ago and actually got over it since but @tardigradedeathposture wanted to read it, so here’s the lightly edited rant.

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I was going to not write about how crap I thought the Witcher TV show was but it keeps bugging me and whatever here’s my rant.

So as my followers might know, I played the games (yes even the first) and mostly liked them, especially the second, which I think is a great game and actually better than the third, which I still enjoyed. The first, well, had its moments. I’ve read the first book about 5 years ago after playing the second game for the second time but couldn’t really get into it, I watched the old Polish TV adaptation and found it sort of quaint but nothing special. So of course I was skeptical of the prospect of a TV show but also sort of interested.

Well good things first. I thought Henry Cavill played Geralt pretty well actually. People hated him when he was first introduced but I think most were won over by his performance. He isn’t quite like the Geralt I know, but that might be due to the script. Second good thing, Jaskier isn’t quite as incredibly annoying as he is in the games, though still annoying. But at least he isn’t a pimp here. Third good thing, Chireadan, because Elves <3

But apart from these aspects, I think I haven’t watched such a stupid show since Once upon a time (which was so terrible that it caused my gallbladder to ache non-stop, so I had to stop after the first half of season 1. Witcher didn’t do that, so I guess it wasn’t quite as bad as OUAT). I know the series follows the story laid out in the books, and actually my problem isn’t even what happens, but how it’s presented, in that story and characterization manage to be tepid and tropey and also illogical and self-contradictory.

Take Yennefer for example, because her character annoyed me the most.

Now I’m not a fan of her in the third game either but at least she has a consistent (terrible) personality and a will of her own there. I read that she’s a better character in the books, so okay. Maybe they butchered her on the show. I honestly don’t remember the book I read very well anymore, as I said, I couldn’t get into it.

She is explicitly said and shown to do very badly during her mage training and to be bad at court politics, she’s barely even shown doing magic before the last episode, but she gets to “ascend”, whatever that means, while the other (far more deserving?) students get turned into eels. Later her teacher says she was the best student she’d ever had (?? when? where?) and gives her trust and responsibility for zero reason and Yennefer goes on to save the day, sort of.

She gets, in one of the most unrealistic scenes on the show, cosmetic surgery that involves an extensive spinal operation and the removal of her uterus WITHOUT NARCOTICS and half an hour later she wows everyone at the prom ball. IIRC, in the books and the games the sorceresses and sorcerers alter their appearance using, uh, magic instead of having some guy rip out their spine. And the sorceresses explicitly make themselves beautiful because “that’s what their clients expect”, just like the sorcerers make themselves appear as “venerable” old men - because it’s the pre-conception their clients have. It’s subversive, John-Karen, because the mages somewhat cynically show themselves to be genre-savvy by exploiting the... why am I explaining this. It’s obvious to everyone except the idiots who wrote the show. The point is, it’s not about their personal empowerment, but they could have done something with Yennefer’s “ugly to beautiful” transformation and they didn’t, so that sucks too.

From the whole way she’s presented, it becomes clear that she would be a terrible mother (”happy childhoods make for boring conversation”), yet we’re supposed to feel sympathy for her quest for fertility. And she’s constantly bitter about her lack of it - when the surgeon told her very clearly that she’d be losing her fertility as a side-effect of the operation and she explicitly agreed to it. This wasn’t something that was forced upon her yet she acts like it was.

Just like in the game, she has zero concern for other people’s wishes or boundaries. I mean she cast magic upon a bunch of people and made them sexually assault each other, and the show just frames it as “sexy lady hosts an orgy”. Then she accuses Geralt of not paying attention to other people’s boundaries because he made a wish she doesn’t even know the specifics of (lol).

Yennefer is a pretty terrible person, which would be fine in terms of character, if she were actually presented as terrible. Yennefer actually has pretty exactly the personality of Cersei Lannister, but Cersei was intentionally portrayed as vicious, power-hungry, dishonest and irrational. We weren’t supposed to see her as a good person and that made her a great character. Watching Cersei was fun and interesting. Watching Yennefer is grating because in any sane universe, a woman like that would not be the hero. That’s also why I think it’s absolutely false to call TW “the new GoT”. TW is worse than even late seasons GoT.

However, the show loves her so much that it randomly gives her super-powers whenever it suits. In the fight in front of the dragon cave, she’s as good with a sword as Geralt, even though she has no training and no muscles and he’s literally been mutated to become a better fighter. In the last episode, she easily deters the attack by Nilfgaard and then destroys their camp (??) with magic when up until then she was only ever shown to be very bad at magic. (Unleash *~the chaos inside you~* god who wrote that script?)

But in the end, almost her whole story is determined by the effect she has on men. Despite all her qualities that we’re supposed to blindly believe she has, it’s her looks and the fact that some men like her constant pointless insults that determines what happens to her. The archeologist guy in the beginning is the only one who stops her from totally failing at mage training. The king she wows with her good looks and her early 21st century dress becomes her employer. Geralt and the Elf guy falling for her. The knight guy she manipulates into going to dragon mountain with her. Her only skill that she is somewhat consistently proven to actually possess is the ability to charm and seduce men with her beauty and her sparkling personality.

Unfortunately, this characterization is somewhat common among “strong female characters”. All the important female characters on American Gods are that way as well. Wonder Woman is (in the film, I haven’t read the comics) close to it as well. Random pointless superpowers, but her story is actually determines by everyone being head over heels for her because she’s pretty. I don’t really know why this counts as “feminist”, but for the media industry apparently it does. I think it’s rather the opposite.

But, god, Yennefer wasn’t the only terrible character. I also hated the way they portrayed what were apparently supposed to be Scoia’tael adjacent Elves in the first episode. Can you imagine Iorveth or Yaevinn make common cause with those planless caricatures? I absolutely love the clearheadedness and ruthlessness of the Scoia’tael in the games. They rebel against human oppression with the decisiveness of people with nothing left to lose. The Elves are portrayed as a mentally somewhat superior race who see themselves as the rightful owners of the land and are absolutely furious at humans using brute force to disinherit them. I love the absolute lack of moral high ground and of “virtuous victimhood”. I love the elitism turned to bitterness. I love the way they frame things like telling Elvish legends as acts of resistance (which is something that has plenty of real-life parallels). I love (since it’s fictional and all) the vicious treatment of human civilians, since, you know, from the Elves’ perspectives there are no civilians among the humans. In the games, you’re clearly made to understand that both the Scoia’tael and their opponents have committed terrible acts, and then, because this is war, you’re expected to pick a side anyway. Which was both easy and fun for me as a huge Elf stan in general, but I love that it’s not supposed to be an easy choice.

So I’m just talking about a short scene in the first or second episode, because that was the only time we see Elves who have Elf-specific problems, but I just hated that scene, because it steps into exactly the tropes that the games avoided. They complain, act irrationally and are portrayed as helpless, morally pure victims who won’t actually do anything that will do more than just slightly inconvenience humans. Toothless! Exactly as Hollywood would like oppressed peoples to be, righteous in their suffering, maybe stealing some bread but that’s all they will do.

Another thing that really bothered me was how unpolished it was. Hahaha! Terrible pun alert. They took everything Polish out of the story, see what I did there? I would have loved to see those houses with the flowers painted on them for example that are based on a real Polish village. What we got was just a bland Medieval(TM) world that could be anywhere and had no discernible features. It also obliterated the charm of the costume design. I found myself longing even for King Henselt’s unbelievably stupid belt because at least it had some character. And the weird and awesome creature design as well. None of it was on the show. Can you imagine that in a million years creatures like the three Crones from TW3 would show up on the show? Of course not, because a female character who won’t give the viewer a boner is obviously not worth showing.

And I don’t even understand how they managed to include Geralt being aware of his outsider status and thinking about it and to somehow make it boring anyway. But I’m really tired of writing and thinking about this now, so this is the end of my rant about like... half the things that annoyed me about the show.

#the witcher #netflix witcher #yennefer #WARNING don't read if you liked the show you'll only hate the text and be unhappy the whole time #you've been warned

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robronsecretsanta · 5 years

Photo

a madness to the method

(AO3)

Rating: E

For @notforonesecond . Merry Christmas! From your Secret Santa. May this bring you as much joy as your presence on here brings me.

:::::

He stands there, script page in hand and a growing pit in his stomach, as Robert Sugden walks up to him with a grin.

“What you waiting for? Get your kit off.”

:::::

It’s his third big role, but the first one that actually means something, Aaron having acted in a couple of big-budget blockbuster films to date; the last two even giving him some lines and some stunts, the latter of which he’d done himself. But so far most of his career has involved plenty of little-known stage work and a few well-received indies, as well as a particularly popular episode of Black Mirror.

He’s fairly certain that’s what landed him this script, his wide body of emotionally driven work. Not every day a Frank Clayton production sends a part your way. Not every day Harriet Finch is attached to direct. (Aaron’s pretty sure he’s one of the few people who’s seen the entirety of her oeuvre, even purchased some of the early stuff on DVD, forcing his best mate Adam to sit through whole movie marathons of her work, dissecting every shot inch by inch.)

The film’s a period piece about two young men who fall in love as a war looms over them; two lovers star-crossed in one of the worst ways possible. Both stuck going to war terrified the other won’t come home. Only they do, if not a little emotionally scarred and a little physically injured. The reunion is emotionally sweet and full of hope — exactly the kind of story Aaron wishes he could have grown up with. Because sometimes a happy ending really makes a difference. He’d almost learned that hard way.

“You sure you want to do this?” His mother asks, curled up on his sofa in his flat in North London and peaking up at him with big brown eyes through dark, bit-too-long bangs. “People might start asking whether you’re gay, love.”

Aaron understands her concerns and where she’s coming from. Doesn’t stop him from shrugging them off and holding firm to the feeling in his gut.

“Let them,” he says, lips downturned at the corners as he paces across the living room determinedly. “Not got anything to hide, have I?”

Despite all his bravado, there’s a flicker of doubt. If this somewhat calculated risk doesn’t pan out, it could be the end of the upward trajectory of his acting career. For all it’s progress on the LGBTQIA-depiction front, Hollywood itself isn’t as accepting of openly queer actors. And while Aaron won’t miss the perks of rising fame at all, he will miss getting to work on more interesting projects or movies, like this one.

Still, Aaron Dingle has never been a liar, and he’s not going to start now. Especially when it comes to his sexuality.

:::::

His agent, a no-nonsense woman named Priya, approves of his decision immediately. She knows he’s gay, has known from the start. But it’s never affected her decision to take him on as a client. (It’s one of the reasons Aaron’s stuck with her so long; tying his rising star to her job.)

“You’ve certainly got the talent and the range to pull this off,” she states and it feels less like a dream and more like reality. “With Finch directing it, this could become potential Oscar material. This part’ll definitely get you noticed.”

Aaron smiles and nods along, because that is nice he supposes. He’s just glad the production company don’t want yet another audition, or even a chemistry read with his yet-to-be-announced co-star. He’s sick of them at this point.

“Who’s the other lead?” He asks, fingers picking at each other, left knee bouncing in the chair. He’s about ready to leave Priya’s office. But the second he hears her answer, he’s stuck bolted to his seat. His mind reeling with the news of it.

Robert Sugden.

:::::

To say he’s heard of Robert Sugden is the understatement of the century. If anything, he’s the one responsible for Aaron’s sexual awakening.

Like most teenage boys his age, he’d been obsessed with the Transformers movies. Only unlike his best mate Adam, he didn’t fall asleep and wake up hard to thoughts of the hot female lead. No, despite his best attempts at the time, his mind always drifted to the slightly older but also teenaged Robert Sugden; the son of a famous actor who’d also made it big quite young, starring in at least two popular TV series. (In hindsight, Aaron’s desire to purchase and put up a shirtless poster of Robert on his bedroom wall should have been a big hint as to his nascent gayness. But like all sexually confused teenagers he’d managed to convince himself he was more into the trucks instead; that he wanted to be Robert Sugden, not be with him.)

He’d spent a full summer when he was 15 watching his way through Robert’s early work, bingeing that one popular science fiction series where he and a group of teens investigated strange paranormal phenomena at their English boarding school. A part of him had come alive when a body-swap episode had caused Robert’s character’s body to be a possessed by a female friend’s, resulting in him kissing and making out with her boyfriend who’d been played by Pete Barton. (Aaron had spent the ensuing weeks reading and rewatching everything to with those few minutes of airtime, refusing to let anyone play over his recording. He’d worn out the tape till it could play no longer.)

The first time he’d come was a few weeks later, Robert’s name on his lips as he’d pictured being kissed by him, his hand moving up and down the length of his naked shaft faster and faster; rock hard and aching at just the thought of him.

Robert. Fucking. Sugden.

What are the odds?

He doesn’t know whether to quit the project or just die of mortification. How is he supposed to act against someone he’s had those kinds of thoughts about? (He’s never had limits for who you should love and be with. After all, that would be a tad hypocritical of him. But some lines shouldn’t be crossed, no matter the project, and he’s fairly convinced this is one of them.)

He mentions this to Adam when he comes over to play FIFA on the PS4 later, only his best mate doesn’t quite seem to get it. Though to be fair, he’s never really had to deal with this, has he?

“So what? You used to jerk off to him. Big deal!” Adam shrugs, cycling through the options and picking his players. “If I said I’d avoid every female celeb I did that with, I wouldn’t be able to work with any of them.”

Aaron makes a face, even if he does concede that Adam has a point — not that he’s out there having to act against… (He’s actually not sure who this week’s flavour of the month is. Adam’s feelings of attraction waxing and waning like the moon.)

“Though,” Adam says, turning to look at him when he’s satisfied with his choices. “His sister Victoria is pretty fit. Do you think you could get her number?”

Aaron tosses a cushion at his face. Leave it to Adam to miss the point completely.

It bounces off and falls onto Adam’s lap, he picks it up and places it beside him.

When he turns toward Aaron this time, he looks a lot more serious, an earnestness in his gaze that wasn’t there before.

“Listen,” he says, voice soft yet firm. “You’ve wanted to be in one of Finch’s movies ever since I’ve known ya. Don’t back out now just because of Sugden.”

Aaron nods, though he’s still not convinced. Adam must see it because he then adds, “You’ll do fine. You’re an amazing actor. That’s why they wanted you for this part, you know, instead of me.”

Aaron shoots him a look and Adam just shrugs. Turns his attention back to the TV screen as he says, “What? I’m a scene stealer. Everyone knows that.”

That triggers a laugh and when it’s over, Aaron feels a lot lighter. But even as they both accept their team and kit selections and start the game, his mind drifts back to a young, shirtless Robert…

:::::

He keeps the part after all, the announcement making some waves in the press. However, any intrusiveness into his personal life is circumvented by the latest news about Robert. Rumour has it that he’s up for consideration as the new James Bond. Aaron had laughed when he’d first read the news. But laying in bed, later that night, he can’t help but picture Robert in a trademark suit, smirking down the barrel of a gun, the way he’s become known for.

It’s enough to make him shaken and stirred — not that he lifts a finger to relieve himself of the dull, building throb. (If there’s one thing Aaron Dingle’s sure about, it’s that it’s impolite to pleasure oneself to the thoughts of an upcoming co-star. Even if they were the starring role in his teenage fantasies.)

He ends up taking a cold shower instead.

:::::

Meeting Harriet Finch is everything like he’d imagined, and yet nothing like it at all.

Aaron spends all morning practicing what he wants to say to her, pacing back and forth in his newly assigned trailer — which happens to be both bigger and more luxurious than he’d expected. None of the words of praise he’s wanted to lavish her with seeming right for the moment, or even worthy of her, but he keeps practicing all the same.

That’s why he’s thrown when she comes to see him, telling him how much she’d enjoyed his turn in a small play he’d done last summer as a favour to an old friend (and ex-boyfriend), Ed.

She smiles at him with kind, dark eyes and outlines the many ways in which he’d knocked that role out of the park, followed by his performance in those few movies and, of course, Black Mirror.

“I knew you were the right man for the part the moment I saw you,” she says, voice like a warm woollen blanket, the words wrapping him up in a cocoon of comfort. “You’ll make a marvellous ‘Thomas.’ I just know it. I’m glad to have you on this project.”

But just as he’s basking in the glow of her reassurance, she asks the dreaded question.

“Have you met Robert Sugden?”

:::::

If first meetings dictate how the rest of a working relationship might go, Robert and Aaron’s is already off to a really bad start.

He’d shown up to Robert’s trailer and gone in after knocking a few times, only to find him in the throes of being orally pleasured.

Aaron hadn’t recognised the woman, just seen the back of her head, as she’d kneeled in front of Robert and blown him. Robert was sitting on the edge of his trailer’s bed and leaning back, both arms supporting his weight across the still-made comforter. His shirt was unbuttoned and he’d got his leather jacket on, neck exposed as he half lay there jerking and groaning.

He’d seemed to sense Aaron because Robert had looked up at once, locking eyes across the short distance. He’d given him a long hard look, then flashed him a wink and a smile, before closing his eyes and coming into the woman’s mouth not very long after.

Cheeks reddening and more than a little shocked, Aaron had turned and bolted. He’d wanted to spare that poor woman the embarrassment of knowing he’d seen this happening, but more importantly, process it all himself.

Standing in his own trailer he wants to kick himself for being such a goddamn fool. The tabloids had been reporting this side of Robert Sugden for years on end. But Aaron had ignored them because that’s what you were supposed to do. (And maybe, he tries not to acknowledge as his heart continues to pound, because it had ruined his fantasy of Robert and his younger self.)

But for all his talent — and he has plenty of it — Robert Sugden has always been a bit of a playboy; has the ex-wife and half a dozen ex-girlfriends to prove it. The result of this is a respectable body of work, but no one noticing because of all the gossip. (Aaron had once suspected this was Robert trying to undersell himself, maybe a bit nervous of all the extended limelight. He’d grown up Jack Sugden’s son, had had to bear that mantle, while also carving a name for himself, with not much room for error.)

Any sympathy he’d once felt though, has now been stripped away, replaced with cold, hard knowledge. Robert Sugden actually enjoys behaving like this, and Aaron can’t believe he’d liked him.

As he starts pacing, his heart still racing, Aaron gets madder and madder. They’ve both been given a golden opportunity being cast in these roles, and it’s something Robert wants to squander?

He’d wanted to walk away from this project because he’d been worried about his own personal hang-ups. Not wanting any former feelings for Robert to affect his performance. But now all he can think about is Robert’s smile and his wink, as if showing off his sexual prowess to Aaron.

This feels good, and I made that happen. Maybe I can do that for you as well?

Aaron growls, feels like punching something nearby, hating the small part of him that had kind of enjoyed it; that place deep within himself that still tends a tiny flame devoted to Robert Sugden; that place that had enjoyed watching him come.

It’s not your fault, Aaron tells himself, trying to banish the recent memory from his mind — though he’d spent years picturing and imaging exactly that. Him blowing Robert and feeling him coming under him, his palms flat against his thighs. (Sometimes he’d imagine the flip of it too. Him coming apart in Robert’s hands, his mouth smirking as Aaron comes right into it.)

He’s just managed to get rid of it, when he hears a dry chuckle, spins around to find Robert standing in his trailer, blue shirt all buttoned and jeans up and belted, like that midday blowjob hadn’t happened.

He smiles at him, blue-green eyes glittering, “So I take it you’re Aaron Dingle.”

It sends a thrill up his neck, short hairs lightly lifting, at the prospect of Robert Sugden saying his name. But then annoyance sets in as that memory comes back and Aaron grunts his affirmation.

“What do you want?”

Robert doesn’t seem deterred, doesn’t even seem to clock his rudeness. Just smiles at him like he said something funny. “To apologise. That wasn’t how I’d pictured our first meeting.”

“Why? You plan on having your cock in someone else’s mouth?” Aaron fires back, a little shocked that Robert had ever given meeting him any thought.

Robert’s eyes widen at the accusation, but whatever it is that came over him passes because he laughs and clears his throat. “No. Wasn’t planning to, actually. Just wanted to tell you what a big fan I am.”

His eyes flit away, and his smile kind of softens. Robert looks back at Aaron. “And that I’m looking forward to us working together.”

If Aaron hadn’t seen what he’d seen, he’d believe every word of this, Robert coming across well-meaning and earnest. But then he remembers just how good of an actor his co-star-to-be really is and snorts. “Nice try. Hope you’re better on camera.”

Robert winces at that, but his smile remains, even if it’s starting to look a little brittle.

“I’m sorry about what happened, alright?” Robert says, frustration colouring his voice at the edges. Aaron can see that this really is paining him; Robert not that good of an actor. “Let’s start over.”

He takes a step forward and holds out his hand. “Hi. I’m Robert Sugden.”

Aaron ignores it, crosses his arms across his chest.

“I know who you are,” he spits out.

Robert looks confused, studies him further before withdrawing his hand and eventually letting it drop. He puts it in his jacket pocket and renews his smile at Aaron. It’s just as small and soft as earlier.

“I’m trying, you know,” he says and Aaron can feel himself willing to give him that inch, to soften and forgive Robert so they can start over. But then he thinks about how smug and cocky he’d been just before he’d come right in front of him, and a wave of pulsing, hot annoyance shoots right through him.

“Then try harder,” Aaron half-growls, taking a small step further. And then, “And maybe try keepin’ your dick to yourself.”

:::::

Production kicks off without any further hitches, and he quickly gets to know the rest of their cast and crew — even becoming friends with a production assistant named Ellis.

Though most of the time Aaron just stays put in his trailer, constantly rehearsing and working on his character.

Harriet seems happy with his performance so far, giving him any extra takes he wants to do. But Aaron hasn’t been able to get in a groove that makes him truly happy; where he has an understanding of his character inside and out.

From the script, his own chat with Harriet, and the homework he’s done, he knows “Thomas James” to be a straightforward fellow, a little tentative, but earnest with his feelings.

He’s a farmer who owns and works his own farm, before one day he runs into Felix, his new and struggling neighbour. Felix’s family has lost most of their estate; bad debts and investments before the beginnings of the war hit. All they have now, is this one farm to their name, and Felix, a city boy — or rather, man — through and through has no clue how to run it.

Unable to stand it, Thomas steps in to help him, and Felix promises to do his accounts in trade. Thomas agrees, the spark between them growing and burning brighter.

Robert and he have played and shot a handful of those initial scenes, mostly set up for the rest of the story. But as their characters have seemed to find an easy camaraderie, there barely exists one between them.

For his part, Robert hasn’t really paused his efforts to win Aaron over, always making jokes and trying to give him an opening. Internally, Aaron struggles not to let go and give in, not having run into Robert with his cock down someone else’s throat since.

He doesn’t understand how Robert can just switch into his role and then right out of it, a slippery fish if there ever was one. He throws on Felix’s skin like it’s one of those button-up shirts he so favours, constantly remaining in costume longer than needed. (Aaron actually doesn’t mind that because it’s easy on the eyes and for their characters, Robert wearing 1920 period garb like he was born for it.)

Felix is smart and inept, but also charming and funny, a gay man in his shell, with no real interest in marriage. Just a blushing eye turned towards Thomas.

And that’s the part that kind of stings in their scenes, because it’s in those moments that Aaron feels he can really see the Robert he once had a crush on; a hint of him shining through.

It’s in Robert’s small smiles and the soft in his eyes, the blue-green of them a warm summer ocean.

But then Harriet says, “Cut” and it all disappears, Robert’s eyes growing cooler, his body more indifferent; tensed and held in a way he doesn’t when he’s Felix, like he’s holding a deep breath in.

That’s the first thing Aaron notices as they take a break before they shoot their first big scene, a first kiss where both men realise their mutual attraction.

They’re standing in a field, where Felix’s tractor has broken down, and Thomas has ridden up in his horse to help fix it.

As Aaron walks through the wet grass, his period accurate boots and jeans sinking into the mud a little, he gets his first glimpse of Robert.

His shirt sleeves are rolled back and his brow is plastered with sweat. He’s clearly been out in a full afternoon of labour.

They go through the dialogue, Felix directing Thomas to the back of the tractor, some kind of malfunction trapped within it. Thomas gives it a look, and Aaron produces a short grunt of surveyance, really giving it a decent study.

Then exhaling slowly he offers Thomas’ suggestion, that sometimes you just need to push it. He does as he says, and gives the tractor a shove, before letting his knees soften and himself fall forward in the muck.

Above him, he can hear Robert’s laughter bursting forth loud and clear, and he knows instantly it’s not his acting as Felix. He turns to his side and shoots Robert a dirty look, but in his chest his heart skips a beat at it.

Finally springing into action Felix leans forward and offers Thomas a hand, Robert bending and extending his hand out. The laughter still shines in his eyes, even if it’s not coming out his lips, his breath still short and him still panting.

Something surges in Aaron and he feels Thomas’ quiet sense of humour, reaches up and pulls Robert down towards him.

Robert captures all of Felix’ (and probably some of his own) surprise, his own knees bending as he falls atop Aaron; the hard firmness of his limbs utterly unexpected, and yet fitting against him perfectly.

He’s now laying on his back in the mud, feeling the cold soak into his tough warm denim, the flannel of his shirt doing little to protect him. But none of that matters as Robert gazes down at him, both their chests pressed together.

The script says this is where Felix kisses Thomas, too physically close for any more doubted restraint. Only Robert hasn’t moved, just keeps on laying there, mere centimetres away, his eyes trained down on Aaron’s lips, as if frozen by disbelief and nervousness.

Probably just nervous about kissing another man, Aaron thinks, flashing back to Robert kissing Pete Barton, and the way his hands had cupped his face. Probably worried that this time someone might think he’s gay.

Deep inside Aaron, something aches. He lets out a small, frustrated huff, his head relaxing back into the wet dirt, resigning himself to a long wait.

And then it’s like something snaps, because Robert leans forward, lunging for his lips with everything he has; his tongue barely waiting as Aaron’s lips part. (They hadn’t rehearsed this, or even really discussed it. Aaron not wanting to spend more time around Robert than entirely necessary.)

But as he lays here now, Aaron can’t help but give himself over to it, letting Robert’s fingers skim his sides before they bunch up in the warmth of his flannel shirt, his hands finding their way onto Robert’s lower back and his hair. He holds Robert’s head firm as he deepens the kiss. His co-star isn’t the only one who can improvise.

He doesn’t feel the lack of oxygen until the tail end of a groan, too deep into it to know if it’s from him or Robert.

When they pull apart both of them are panting. Robert’s gaze comes back up and they lock eyes again, a lock of his blonde hair dropping onto Aaron’s forehead, as his breath continues to tickle his lips; both wet and a little blitzed.

Deep in the depths of Robert’s green and blues, Aaron sees a spark of searching nervousness and hesitation. He brushes that bit of hair back almost without thinking; an unconscious act of soothing.

He can hear Robert’s breath hitch at the feel of his thumb pad on his skin, sees the way his eyes drop back down to Aaron’s lips. No longer nervous, and still barely thinking, Aaron leans up and presses another kiss to his lips, this time a more sweet and chaste one.

When he pulls back, Robert still has his eyes closed, almost cute in his stunned still surprise. Aaron finds himself smiling and recording this picture mentally; filled with the desire to go back in time and tell himself, “We kissed Robert Sugden!”

Robert opens his eyes and a second later Harriet yells, “Cut!” Aaron can’t help but feel interrupted.

What did you want to say? He wants to ask, as they both get to their feet. Aaron barely makes an attempt to clean himself off. He knows he needs a good shower.

Next to him, Robert seems to be avoiding his eyes, focusing a little too hard on dusting his pants off. Aaron tries not to spend too much time admiring his bum in the process.

They’re walking off set, when Robert makes the joke, voice flippant and tone just insulting.

“Feel like hitting a strip club, eh?” He says with what is meant to be a playful nudge. “Need to see some naked tits, pronto.”

It shouldn’t hurt as much as it does, this being a movie and all, but it still stings hard and deep all the same.

Aaron feels hot anger come over him without much warning, and he explodes back at Robert in a rage.

“All of this is just one big joke to ya, isn’t it?” He practically spits out the words in a low, angry growl as he shoves Robert backwards into a nearby trailer.

He doesn’t care if anyone’s nearby, or if they even see him. All he can see and hear is Robert.

“These are people’s lives,” he continues, the line of his right forearm held against Robert’s chest, constricting the way he breathes slightly. “Do you even get that?”

“It’s just a joke,” Robert answers, sounding both defensive and soft.

Aaron couldn’t give a toss about it.

“Excuse me if I don’t think bein’ gay is funny,” he fires back, leans in a little and lets the anger radiate off his face, hoping Robert gets the message.

Apparently, he does, because his eyes just widen, and then he’s saying, “Aaron, I’m sorry. I didn’t-“

He knows he’s not exactly hiding his sexuality, but Aaron isn’t really advertising it either, so it sends him reeling back the second he realises Robert has figured out he’s gay.

He stands there panting, anger being replaced by panic, the air evacuating his lungs just as his heart takes residence in his ears.

He turns and walks away before his balance decides to go, can feel his knees weakening with each step he takes; thinks he hears Robert calling at him in the distance.

Calling him because he knows this thing about him.

Calling him because he knows he’s gay.

Shit.

:::::

He’s exiting his trailer when he runs into Robert again. Aaron almost bolts the instant he sees him — only to realise he’s blocking his way.

“Aaron, wait,” Robert pleads, looking up at him from the bottom of those short metal stairs. Aaron almost turns around and goes back inside.

But then he notices that Robert is still in his costume — which is not too much of a surprise — but it’s a sign that he’s been waiting outside this entire time. As much as he doesn’t want to, Aaron knows he must honour that. From what he’s seen, Robert Sugden does that for no one.

“You going to invite me inside?” Robert asks when he sees Aaron willingly to stick around in his trailer doorway.. His attempt at a teasing smile fades when he gets Aaron’s answer.

“Whatever you want to say in there, you can say out here.” Aaron crosses his hoodie-covered arms across his chest, retaining the warmth within it.

Robert nods, and takes one step higher, making this whole conversation a little more private. Aaron can smell him, even standing a few inches away; the intermingled scent of mud and sweat and Robert. (The note is slightly floral but kind of muted like Lavender, but Aaron can’t be sure because he doesn’t know flowers.)

“Sorry I made those jokes earlier,” Robert says softly, and Aaron can see that he’s being absolutely serious. “I don’t think being gay is funny…”

Aaron doesn’t say anything, just keeps on watching. He can see that Robert is on the edge of something.

After what feels likes very long pause, it finally drops. “… because I’m actually bisexual.”

He can’t seem to meet Aaron’s eyes as he says that, his cheeks going pink as he looks away and to the left. Standing this close Aaron can feel the tension radiating off of him in waves, coming over him in rapid succession.

Aaron swallows, not sure what exactly to make of it; his teenage dreams all coming true in an instant. So he bites his tongue and holds back his first three replies, and then offers the one he feels is most supportive.

“Thanks for telling me,” he says and he finds that he means it. He’s actually a little touched by Robert’s choice to trust him.

“Figured it was the least I owe you,” Robert says with a shy smile, and for a second Aaron really feels like he’s looking at Felix.

His inner Thomas makes him return it.

“That why you wanted to do this movie?” Aaron asks when the moment eventually passes. It’s a big question he knows, but he needs an answer.

“No, actually,” Robert explains with a chuckle, something raw and unguarded about him now. Like he’s been acting this entire time Aaron has known him.

“I’m a big fan of hers,” Robert says with an excited smile. “She was my mum’s favourite director.”

Aaron gets it and gives him a nod. “Yeah, I’m a big fan myself.”

Robert grins at this little piece of information, a bigger reward than he was expecting.

“Guess this means we should definitely be friends,” Robert suggests, shyness still lacing his voice. “Don’t know many people who’ve even heard of Harriet.”

Aaron studies Robert, takes the entirety of him in, considers it and then shrugs. “Guess you’re not a complete idiot.”

Robert’s smile when he says that is radiant.

:::::

That night he dreams of Robert, the same one he’d had when he was fifteen. Only this time his brain fills in all the missing details.

He needs another shower in the morning.

:::::

Things improve on set by a thousandfold. Robert’s one-sided jibes giving way to Aaron returning them, both of them ribbing and teasing each other between takes. Robert somehow becomes a mainstay on his trailer’s sofa, as they hang out a lot more between scenes, running lines and even whole scenes together.

They seem to have found a quiet understanding when it comes to each other and their space.. (Though, coming out to each other does that, Aaron supposes.)

It’s crazy, but he genuinely thinks it makes both of their scenes better. Both of them now freer with how they move and touch each other. Aaron had once read somewhere that it has to do with the language of how queer people sometimes act and speak; a quiet understanding of how love can be writ across their bodies. He doesn’t know how much he agrees with that exactly. But he does feel it when Robert hugs him as Felix.

It’s a gentle gesture, Robert coming from behind and embracing him around the waist, one hand coming up to rest over Aaron’s heart. Aaron presses those fingers close to his chest, letting Robert feel the steady rise of his heartbeat as he sinks back into him; Thomas leaning into Felix.

They stand like that in silence for a moment longer, Robert’s chin on Aaron’s shoulder, both of them

bathing in the pale sunlight of a cool autumn morning, as filtered through the dusty windows of Thomas’ work shed.

It’s as they’re standing, silently breathing and hearts quickly beating that Aaron is seized by a sudden urge. Following the wave of it, he brings Robert’s fingers up to his lips, gently pressing a kiss on each knuckle as if soothing away newly-formed blisters — the results of Felix’ recent hard labour.

The moment his lips touch skin he hears Robert’s breath hitch, but it only guides him forward. He holds that last kiss longest, before pulling away and spinning them around, Robert’s back now pressing into the edge of Thomas’ workstation, their hands caught between them; Aaron’s fingers wrapped around Robert’s wrist, his thumb resting on his speeding pulse.

Robert for his part, seems to be trusting Aaron implicitly as he gazes down at Aaron first with surprise and then excitement. He smiles softly, clearly anticipating a kiss. Aaron smiles back and obliges him.

It’s completely unscripted and wholly them and yet none of it feels any bit of wrong. Aaron leans forward, slowly edging closer, his eyes locked into Robert’s. He hovers for a second, feels his breath bounce off Robert’s lips, then dips forward and claims them.

This kiss doesn’t progress as quickly as the first one did, Robert letting Aaron set the pace by which they go by. So he takes his time, focuses on nipping at Robert’s bottom lip; gentle kisses that should convey Thomas’ affections.

But then Robert’s hands start to slide across his back, pulling and holding him closer — only nothing about the gesture feels overtly sexual. It’s just two men standing and savouring the act of kissing, two men revelling in their affections.

They kiss a little longer, the pace still languid, Robert letting him take his sweet time, before Aaron decides to pause and not take it any further.

He pulls away, lets out his own small exhale — the matching one to Robert’s. He smiles at him, Robert returns it. Then with another small breath he leans his forehead against the other man’s; shuts his eyes and feels the feel of his skin against his own.

A few seconds pass, Robert still holding him close, Aaron feeling like he’s just survived a continuous free fall.

It’s in the middle of this that he hears Harriet’s quietly spoken words, “And that’s a wrap. Not going to get a better take than that one.”

:::::

He’s on his way off set when Robert catches up with him, grabbing his elbow to still him.

He doesn’t let go even when Aaron stops in place, only does when Aaron looks at him questioningly, despite the whole thing feeling natural.

“You doing anything later?” Robert asks, both hands in his leather jacket pockets, a leather messenger bag slung across his chest and shoulders. “Thought you might like to come over for a drink.”

Aaron considers it, gives it a long hard thought, but it must make Robert panic because he blurts out, “We can run lines or something.”

“Yeah, okay,” Aaron tells him, giving him a nod. And then, because he thinks Robert might have the wrong impression of him and he doesn’t at all like that.

“We don’t always have to work, you know. I do have other interests..”

Robert grins and nudges him in the side. Then he goes into an impression of Aaron.

“I’m Aaron Dingle and I think work is fun. If you don’t, then you’re a right idiot.”

Aaron tries not to, but he can’t stop himself chuckling, a little charmed by Robert’s intonation.

:::::

He finds that Robert’s home is nothing like he’d imagined, more lived in and comfortable than overly posh — though he has all sorts of shiny appliances in the kitchen. A mark of either a man who cooks, or just someone who likes the aesthetic. (Aaron is willing to bet it’s the first one.)

The bookshelves — of which there are two big ones — are stuffed to the gills, brimming with books threatening to fall off them. The walls, a nice calming shade of blue, are covered in posters paying homage to some of his favourite works of science fiction.

“Didn’t know you were such a nerd,” Aaron says when he’s got a drink in hand, as he looks up at a poster of The Xavier Files, the show he’d been more than a little obsessed with. Robert is standing front and centre as the star, his boarding school uniform fitting him flatteringly. (Aaron swallows, his blood growing warmer as he understands where certain fantasies might have originated from. He tries not to think about it in case he’ll need another cold shower. He’s already taken one before coming to this place.)

“You just don’t understand art,” Robert retorts, coming over to join him. He looks at the poster for a good second and then adds, “Or quality science fiction.”

Aaron snorts at that, unable to contain himself. “Think you’re using the term rather loosely. The ‘Gavoorians’? Come on.”

Robert looks at him in surprise, and maybe a hint of pleasure, as he says, “Don’t tell me youwatched it?”

Aaron goes red, feels his mouth turn dry, so he answers as honestly as he can, trying not to let the truth of the matter slip out even as he looks Robert in the eye.

“Might have caught an episode or two one summer,” he says, voice straining to remain casual. Then he adds, because he can’t help himself, “Saw the one where you kissed Pete Barton.”

Robert’s face goes from surprise to embarrassment to all-out amusement, barking a laugh with his neck tipped back, his shoulders relaxing and also dipping down. Aaron’s never seen him this joyful.

“What?” Robert says, growing suddenly conscious, his laughter fading and his body going still. His cheeks are pink as he studies Aaron.

“Nothing,” Aaron shrugs, voice above a whisper. His ears are hot, his pulse pounding. “Just wasn’t expecting this reaction, is all.”

“Well, it’s a bit of a surprise,” Robert explains, as if it all makes sense. “Didn’t think you’d have even heard of it, let alone watched it.”

“Why not? Because I don’t understand ‘science fiction’?” Aaron teases, oddly thrilled at subverting Robert’s expectations like this. “Don’t have to watch a lot to understand quality.”

“So you agree,” Robert smirks, nudging him with his elbow, a twinkle in his eye. “It is science fiction.”

Aaron snorts, nudges him back. “I suppose. But you’re really stretching the definition.”

They smile at each other, then go back to sipping their drinks, settling comfortably in the silence.

“I loved working on that show,” Robert says after quite a long beat, his voice holding a note of pride. But it’s quiet and with absolutely no hint of preening. “And kissing Pete wasn’t half bad either.”

Aaron feels his cheeks redden as he pictures it again, teenage Pete and Robert going at it.

“Did you have a crush on him, or something?” He looks down at the glass in his hand. He’d never thought he’d be having this conversation with Robert Sugden.

“God, no.” Robert shakes his head beside him. “Pete was pretty fit, but he’s pretty much as straight as they come.”

He waits a beat and then adds, “Decent kisser though.”

How about me? Am I decent too? Aaron wants to ask. But he just chuckles in amusement, enjoying this behind the scenes glimpse into one of his favourite episodes of television ever.

“But what about you?” Robert asks, turning his attention to Aaron. He finishes the last of his drink and asks, “Did you fancy him?”

His smile is conspiratorial and all kinds of knowing. His eyes are dark but inscrutable. Aaron’s cheeks redden despite himself, as he struggles not to blurt out, No. I fancied you, you idiot.

What he does manage to say, after a long moment of waiting, is, “Well, I wasn’t watching for the plot. Was I?”

It doesn’t feel like lying, because it is completely true. Though he does see the flash of something in Robert’s eyes. It disappears behind a laugh a moment later.

“No, I guess not,” Robert concedes, turning and walking over to the sofa. When he takes his seat, it’s with his legs spread wide, all the focus on his crotch. Aaron struggles to not let his gaze drift downward, keeping it trained on Robert’s face instead. And honestly, it’s worth it.

Robert’s smiling up at Aaron, buzzing with excitement. Aaron smiles back because it’s infectious.

“If you liked The Xavier Files, there’s a film you should check out,” he says, switching on his TV, Aaron no longer the focus of his attention. He pulls up Netflix, slowly searches through it, before he asks, “Have you seen The Cabin in the Woods?”

The way he’s looking at Aaron now is just pulling at all his heartstrings, an element of youth befalling all of Robert’s features. His eyes are sparkling, his smile is crooked, and his excitement is radiating off of him.

Robert Sugden: Horror fan.

“Uh, no, I haven’t,” Aaron says shaking his head to clear it. It wouldn’t do to fall for Robert Sugden again. Not when he’s a full-fledged adult. Not when he could accidentally act on it. (Aaron’s always has a rule against dating fellow co-stars or crew members. But no one’s been openly queer enough to test that — or even simply Robert Sugden.)

“Oh, you’re in for a treat,” Robert says patting the sofa seat beside him. Aaron glances at the screen where the movie is waiting, already cued up, then goes ahead and joins him. “Joss Whedon wrote and directed it.”

Even sitting next to Robert makes his heart rate spike, as does the warmth he feels from his proximity. Robert’s choice to sit in the middle of the sofa and almost spread himself out means he’s just a few fingers far away from Aaron, their hands centimetres apart on the same cushion; the dip caused by Aaron sitting causing Robert’s hand to slide a little closer to him.

He barely manages a nod when he hears Robert talk to him, asking him if he can start the movie. (He would have said yes, but his tongue has ceased to work. Another symptom of sitting next to Robert.)

The film begins and Robert reaches forward and places the remote on the coffee table and suddenly Aaron can focus once more; the thought of Robert accidentally touching him no longer playing on his mind, now free to enjoy the movie.

But as he watches the story of a group of friends — one played by Chris Hemsworth — who decide to spend a weekend in a cabin in the woods, there’s a growing sense of disappointment.

He quickly looks over to Robert’s hands in his lap, and starts to wish they were once again closer.

:::::

He doesn’t have to worry for very much longer, Robert reaching out and grabbing his forearm, when the movie presents its first real scare. Aaron isn’t expecting it, the move causing his heart rate to surge for the monster on screen itself, the feeling of warm, solid fingers clutching him clear even through thick fabric.

As it turns out Robert’s not a very passive watcher, constantly leaning over to make asides or jokes. But mostly it’s all facts he finds fun about the movie. (Aaron agrees. They’re actually quite interesting.)

It’s sweet, Aaron thinks, as he gets more and more invested, both fretting for the imperilled college students and watching Robert.

Gone is the tall and handsome actor who practically grew up in the limelight. In his stead sits a tall, handsome, and surprisingly knowledgeable genre film buff. He’s on the edge of his seat and mostly turned toward Aaron, a bit of a contrasting match to his own seating. (Aaron’s sat back, leaning on the right arm of the sofa, a little too tired to really make himself sit up properly.)

There’s another scare. Robert’s grip tightens. Aaron hides a chuckle at Robert’s expression, the shock of fear stealing the words out of his mouth. He’s left eyes wide, mouth open, and gaping. It’s almost as if this is his first time watching the movie.

Robert doesn’t seem to notice himself holding Aaron’s arm as the movie ticks on, and for his part, Aaron doesn’t alert him.

:::::

He’s enjoying the movie well enough when Robert excitedly tugs at his arm.

“This is my favourite part,” he says, before turning to look at Aaron, eyes crinkling in delight at the edges.

He’s not sure what it is in that moment — the steady warmth of Robert’s grip, the pinks of his cheeks undercutting his freckles, or the reminder of how much he used to want him — but there’s a swell in his chest and Aaron leans forward and steals a kiss from Robert.

His lips feel just like they have every other time, soft, firm, and tender. But unlike all those times they’ve kissed on camera, his co-star isn’t responding.

Panic sets in and Aaron instantly pulls back. He sees that Robert is frozen in surprise; lips barely puckered. Instantly, he realises he got carried away by his feelings, and so backtracks as quickly as possible.

“Sorry,” he mumbles, getting to his feet, Robert’s hand falling away in the process. The loss of warmth immediately starts to smart, Aaron already having gotten used to the feel of it.

“Aaron,” Robert starts, but he just cuts him off.

“I shouldn’t have done that,” Aaron swallows roughly unable to look at Robert again, his embarrassment turning his stomach. He feels like he might throw up. “Better go home now. Early call time tomorrow.”

With that, Aaron bolts out of the room and then out the front door all without waiting for another word from Robert.

:::::

He doesn’t sleep a wink that night, just replays the moment in his mind.

Each time it gets worse than before, Robert looking at him in shock bordering on disgust, green-blue eyes flashing. (Aaron knows objectively that Robert didn’t actually sneer at him, but emotionally he might as well have.)

This is what happens when you let your feelings get confused, Aaron chides himself, tossing and turning, his sheets all a tangle. This is why you can’t fall for your co-star.

By the time it’s morning he’s tenser than before. But at least he knows what to say to him.

:::::

He goes to Robert’s trailer before he goes to his own, knocking on the door once and then going right in.

Immediately he’s faced with an eyeful of half-naked Robert in snug boxer-briefs, pacing the space and going over his lines by himself.

Aaron loses his voice, his throat going dry. He just stands there in stunned silence. (He has actually seen Robert without a top on a few times before this, courtesy of a few of his movies. But like with all things, real life is proving better. He’d forgotten just how many freckles he has — and how much he used to want to count them.)

Robert notices him ogling him a few seconds later, and he pauses mid-pace. Just stands there frozen, script page in hand.

“Hi,” Aaron says, for lack of anything better. He smiles nervously, both his hands tucked in his coat pockets, watching Robert quietly.

“Hey,” Robert greets back, sounding almost relieved to see him. He doesn’t look like he’s slept either — probably trying to come up with ways with which to let Aaron down gently. Aaron swallows nervously.

At least you don’t have your cock out again, he wants to joke. But now hardly feels like the time for that.

“About yesterday,” Robert begins, taking a step forward, his tone already sounding apologetic.

Aaron takes that as his cue to take over, and so springs into action.

“It was a mistake,” he says matter-of-factly, having practiced this a few times coming in. “I got carried away. Forgot we’re not Felix and Thomas. Don’t worry it won’t happen again.”

Learned my lesson the hard way.

Robert’s brow is furrowing and he doesn’t seem too pleased. Probably because Aaron is issuing a gentle let down for him. He’d figured this was the easiest way to save face: to acknowledge his crime and issue an apology, save Robert the trouble of having to do any heavy lifting.

“Besides,” Aaron says, trying to lighten the mood, even though it’s absolutely twisting him inside. “Wouldn’t want any rumours ruinin’ ya chances, eh Mr. Bond?”

He offers him a smile, but it feels too watery and shallow. He’s barely able to keep his lips turned upward for long.

Robert’s expression doesn’t soften even a bit, just grows more dark and displeasured. He opens his mouth to say something, but before he can the trailer door swings open.

“Oh excellent,” Harriet states, coming in with a smile, happy to see both of them. “This should save me some time.”

She must sense the tension in the air, the trailer now thick with the smell of it. Her smile fades and she looks between them, then asks, “Everything alright?”

Aaron chances a glance at Robert and finds him looking almost inscrutable. (Though to be fair, his mind hasn’t moved on from the fact that he’s practically naked.)

“Just fine,” Aaron says, with another thin smile, this one a little easier than that first one.

He’s not sure if she believes him, but she does nod anyway, so he finds that to be heartening.

“There’s been a bit of a change in the shooting schedule, seeing as the weather forecast for today is a bit unexpected,” Harriet tells them, looking from Aaron over to Robert. “So we’re going to try and do today’s scenes tomorrow, and tomorrow’s stuff today. You fine with that?”

Aaron thinks real fast, runs through his memory, trying to figure out what tomorrow brings. He realises it a second later, his stomach sinking quickly, filled with dread about how they’re going to do this.

“Yeah, sure,” Robert replies, sounding quite casual, like what’s about to happen isn’t a big deal to him.

Aaron doesn’t know whether to be hurt or happy, so he just files it as a temporary win. He nods his acceptance when Harriet looks at him questioningly, then follows it up with a, “Should be fine.”

“Perfect! I’ll let the rest of the cast know, and I’ll get makeup in here first thing,” Harriet says, smiling in relief. “Why don’t you two work on any blocking you feel you might need? Especially since all of this is short notice.”

She turns and leaves, the door slamming shut behind her. Leaving nothing but aching silence.

When Aaron finally hazards a glance, he sees that Robert’s staring down at his script page, all focused like if he stares hard enough he can change what just happened.

“So do you want to…” Aaron starts, gesturing between them, unsure what else to say. He kicks himself mentally once again, for ruining any progress in the working relationship between them.

Robert sighs, long and deep, then says, “Suppose we can just figure it out when we both get there.”

He only looks at Aaron when he’s done talking, like he can’t bear to look at him.

Aaron nods his agreement. “Cool. Better get going then. Get into today’s ‘costume.’”

It’s meant to be a joke but Robert doesn’t respond. Just nods back at him pensively.

Aaron desperately wants to ask if everything’s alright between them, but he doesn’t want to make the situation any worse than it seems to be already.

“Yeah, great. See you on set,” Robert finally says, turning away, and walking towards the opposite end of his trailer. A non-verbal dismissal.

Aaron exits, then shuts the door, letting out a sigh as he leans back against it.

It was every bit as awkward as he’d expected — only now it’s been ratcheted up to a million. They’re going to need every single bit of their acting skills if they’re going to sell what’s about to happen. Because Aaron’s not sure how else he and Robert are going to get through the rest of this day, when they’ll both be shooting Thomas and Felix’ first sex scene.

:::::

He stands there, script page in hand and a growing pit in his stomach, as Robert Sugden walks up to him with a grin.

“What you waiting for? Get your kit off.”

The words hit him before the tone does, Robert’s voice sounding teasing but brittle. Aaron’s eyes shoot up towards him, and he sees that the smile on his face is nowhere near his eyes and he’s clearly keeping up pretences.

Right, of course, Aaron tells himself, after getting over the initial surprise of it. We’re all actors here. No point pretending.

It’s silly and it shouldn’t sting as much as it does but Aaron’s still aches at Robert’s reaction. It’s one thing to not be interested in his romantic advances, but it’s another thing to pretend they completely didn’t happen. (He knows it’s hypocritical to feel this way, seeing as he’d actually prayed they could do this last night. But now that he’s living the exact reality he’d hoped for, he knows to be careful what you wish for.)

Still, he smiles right back, feels it hurt to even do so, as he lobs back a response of his own. Both of them standing there in bathrobes.

“Why don’t you get yours off first?”

Robert’s eyes widen, but his smile never falters. Instead, he winks and says, loud enough for anyone standing close by to hear, “Looks like you’ll be getting your wish soon enough.”

Aaron rolls his eyes, but his cheeks are still blushing, Robert having hit upon a wish from his youth.

Thankfully, Robert doesn’t see it, Harriet having arrived on the closed, private set, the number of people limited to just her, the two of them, and a small team of production people.

When she gives them a nod, they both strip out of their robes, both of them left standing naked, except for their actors’ modesty socks hiding their cocks and balls. Aaron does his best to keep his gaze level and facing forward, as he goes and finds his mark. The scene involves Felix making love to Thomas, on the floor of the latter’s barn.

The wooden floorboards are tad bit cool and just a little prickly — stray stalks of hay strewn across them — Aaron discovers as his bare back and arse come to rest against them, the sensation causing his skin to stand on end and his back wanting to arch off of it.

Aaron doesn’t have much time to process it, because now Robert’s crawling into his position, slowly lowering himself across Aaron and coming to rest on both his forearms. Aaron keeps his eyes pointed towards the barn ceiling and the rig of artificial lighting, hoping to make things as less awkward as possible.

He can feel Robert’s breath against his cheek, and the heat of him on his arms and chest as they silently hold these poses for the lighting check; Robert is now laying between Aaron’s spread and bent thighs, his arse exposed for everyone to see — not that he seems to care or even looks embarrassed. Instead, Aaron can feel him looking down at him, pinning him to the ground where he’s laying. Still, he refuses to look back at him, his heart furiously beating, as he refuses to make even a hint of eye contact; his last vestige of privacy.

“This isn’t going to work,” Robert says with a sigh after what feels like a day and an age, and Aaron feels his stomach clench, preparing for Robert to clamber off him, already missing him despite no part of them really touching at the moment. “Not if you don’t look at me.”

That gets Aaron’s attention and he looks up into Robert’s eyes, where he finds nothing but calm and watchful understanding.

“What?” He whispers, not meaning to come off so rude, but he’s nervous about what Robert might say and this is a pre-emptive strike — a test to see if he can handle it.

“About yesterday-” Robert begins, and Aaron immediately protests.

“I thought we were done talking about it.”

“No,” Robert insists, voice firm and kind of steely. “You talked about it. I just listened.”

Aaron swallows and lays there, his heart in his ears, as he wishes himself anywhere but here.

But then without warning, Robert dips down and kisses him, a firm press across his lips before a tongue swipes against the bottom one. Aaron grants him eager entry.

Robert pulls back, a half a moment later, remains naked and panting over Aaron.

“What was that?” Aaron asks, body locked in surprise, though his cock is already having a bit of a reaction. He tries his hardest not to think about it.

“What I wish I’d done last night,” Robert replies, speaking softly, as he shoots Aaron a tentative smile. “What I wish I’d done this morning.”

“You mean…” Aaron trails off, struggling to compute, still feeling like this puzzle is missing a few pieces. Any thoughts about his dick fall by the wayside.

“I like you, Aaron,” Robert says like it’s a well known fact, and not something he just demonstrated with his tongue down Aaron’s throat. “And as you can see, I don’t really care who knows it.”

Aaron glances around and sees that no one’s really paying them much attention, Harriet studying the film monitors in front of her from the director’s seat, the sound guys standing and chatting in the corner.

“Guess that’s a relief,” Aaron finally sighs, when he comes back to look up at Robert’s face. “Seein’ as I like you too.”

It’s like a wave ripples between them because suddenly they’re both touching in millions of tiny ways. Robert’s arms move a little closer, Aaron’s a little wider, both their limbs now settling together. Robert’s planking position lowers, causing him to actually lay across Aaron, their chests just centimetres apart, even as their belly buttons touch, and their cocks, swaddled in their actors’ modesty socks now rest against each other; both steadily hardening. (Aaron smiles as he realises that, flushed with pride that Robert Sugden wants him.)

“So, you going to kiss me back or what?” Robert then asks, smiling down at Aaron, his arms framing either side of his face.

Aaron shakes his head, grinning back cheekily. “Thought we’d save it for the camera.”

:::::

When Harriet yells, “Action,” Robert’s focused and gazing into his eyes. But he doesn’t lunge forward like Aaron expects him to.

Instead, he slowly comes forward, nudges his nose against Aaron’s, before touching their lips together and letting them hover that way for a second, before increasing the pressure, one hand coming to holding the side of Aaron’s face.

Slowly, Aaron’s waiting lips part, as he opens his mouth and lets his tongue curl and slide against Robert’s; allowing him to steal the breath right out of him.

They kiss like that for a couple of minutes, Aaron’s hands sliding up Robert’s back to wrap around the balls of his shoulders, half holding, half gently kneading.

Slowly and gently, Robert starts to rock in place, dragging his thick and hard cock against Aaron’s. He may be simulating sex, but the feelings are all real, as Aaron feels his own shaft throbbing and aching harder.

Robert kisses his way down his jaw, and then his neck and then his chest, Aaron’s back arching unconsciously against him.

Robert comes back up kiss at his lips, the movement of his hips growing faster.

Aaron closes his eyes and pictures his teenage self and all his exploration of sexuality with another boy in his class in the local village pavilion. None of that compares to Felix and Thomas’ first time, none of that compares to this moment with Robert.

Another wave comes over him and he gives himself into it, rolling them over so Robert is now under him; shaggy hair blending with the straw on the wooden floorboards. Aaron takes his lips in his and resumes their kissing.

He continues to grind, increasing the pressure and speed just a little, chasing that spark that shoots through him when their cocks touch through their socks at just the right spot. He can feels his balls tighten and Robert groan into his mouth, the sound of it soaked with wanting. His own cock feels swollen, now more than thick and leaking, the leaking come making the fabric stick to him and his erect shaft more than sensitive.

Aaron can see his climax rising on the horizon, can feel it gathering at the base of his spine, the pressure building to a tall cresting wave, threatening to crash down over him. Under him, Robert continues softly groaning, loose hands scoring up and down Aaron’s back; the movements causing a little thrill of pleasure.

Then just when his orgasm starts to move towards his peak, pushed onward by the friction between their penises, he hears a sound that causes him to stop almost instantly, and Robert to whine under him.

Aaron lays there panting, cock now more than aching, he curses the gods and this particular profession. He brings his forehead to rest against Robert’s. The sweat on both their brows mingling as the chill in the barn begins to set in.

“Alright,” says Harriet from somewhere behind them. Her voice is firm and brooks no questions. So they know better than to protest it. “This was great. But let’s try that again.”

Aaron drops his head into Robert’s neck and groans.

:::::

An hour later he starts to wonder if Harriet is doing this intentionally; guiding them close to the edge with her takes and directions, only to cause them to pull back again, just adding to their rising frustrations.

His only solace is the presence of Robert, who moves from over to under — and even one time, beside — him, as they keep kissing and grinding against each other for the camera; both more sensitive than ever.

“Come back to mine after,” Aaron grunts softly in the middle of one take, too soft for the boom controller to hear him. Robert’s mouth nipping at his shoulder.

“And do what?” Robert whispers, when Aaron rolls them over. It’s clear that he’s a little beyond thinking.

Aaron gets it, biting his tongue as a wave of pleasure sweeps through him.

“What do you think?” He asks, through gritted teeth, as his hips begin simulating trusting. Then he grins slyly as he looks down into Robert’s unfocused eyes.

“Reckon we could run lines or something.”

:::::

They bolt off set before Harriet can even declare it a wrap — or pull either one aside to talk to them — neither of them able to keep the smile off their faces. Aaron tries not to speed, or run a red light, but it’s a struggle with Robert’s right hand on his thigh, slowly inching higher and higher the entire time.

He manages to still his breathing — and his body’s tetchy reaction — as they exit the vehicle and later enter his building. In fact, they make it all the way up and into his flat, without him making even a single move to try and tear Robert’s clothes off.

“Nice place,” Robert says, as Aaron shuts and locks the door behind. Aaron glances around at the classic film posters on his own living room walls and the lived-in state of his sofa; the prime location for all his movie marathons between projects.

“Thought you might want to see it,” Aaron says coming up to stand in front of him, his hands coming to rest on Robert’s lips.

“You were right about that,” Robert says, though his focus is on him. He smiles and adds, “I’m a big fan of Aaron Dingle.”

Aaron smiles back. There’s a flutter in his chest, like a flock of birds flying back after winter. He swallows roughly and gives his answer, his voice coming out rougher as his gaze drops to Rober’s lips, “I’m right about a lot of things. Guess you’re going to have to remind me.”

That’s all it takes because Robert’s lips are on his, with all the urgency of a man drowning.

Aaron grabs at his jacket and starts pushing it off him, as he also walks him to the bedroom.

They stumble a little, the room still a mess from this morning, Robert grabbing Aaron’s biceps so as to not trip backwards over a pair of kicked trainers lying in the middle of the floor.

“You know, a little tidying never hurt anyone,” Robert says coming back in for a kiss.

“Do you want to talk cleaning, or do you want to fuck?” Aaron growls back, still very frustrated from this morning.

Robert stripping him of his hoodie is his answer.

Grinning into the kiss, Aaron tugs Robert’s shirt up and out of his jeans and then makes quick work of the buttons up front — not caring if he loses one. He pushes it off him, and trails kisses down his neck, before pausing to nip once at his collarbone.

Robert inhales sharply, pressing closer into him. So Aaron does it again, just a little bit harder, earning him a groaned, Aaron.

Smiling again, he licks the same area once, then kisses it as if to make it better. Then he turns his attention to Robert’s jeans, his dick already bulging in the front of it.

Robert’s hands are once again moving, pushing Aaron’s own jeans down to pool against his feet. He tries to step out of them, while undoing Robert’s belt buckle, only to feel one of Robert cup his cock through the fabric of his boxers, the pressure firm but gentle.

Aaron lets out a gasp as Robert just chuckles, “Well, hello there Mr. Dingle.”

“Do you ever shut up?” Aaron asks, as he tried to focus on the jeans button in front of him, Robert’s cock already straining against his zipper, as his hand slips from outside Aaron’s boxers into them, drawing out a shuddered gasp as he squeezes his erection.

“Make me,” Robert says with a smug little grin, the words a low purr that goes straight to Aaron’s eardrum.

Aaron takes him up on his offer, kissing him thoroughly, before pushing him back against his mattress.

A thrill runs up his back as he sees a mostly naked Robert Sugden, resting on his elbows and across the unmade purple sheets of his bed. He kneels down at the base of his bed, then reaches up and pulls the hem of Robert’s underwear down. His cock springs out, already wet and leaking, and every bit as long and thick as Aaron had expected.

He runs a hand up it, giving it a test of a stroke, in front of him Robert twitches.

Pleased with the response, Aaron leans forward and hovers over it, feeling Robert’s eyes watching carefully. Then he smiles up at him, before dropping his head down as he sets up about fulfilling a fantasy.

On either side of his head, Robert’s thighs jerking and flexing — just like that first day in the trailer. Only this time it’s Aaron with his mouth on his cock, him being the one to draw the groans out of Robert.

Down between his own legs, his cock is once again aching, having been denied release too many times in one day. Aaron wraps a hand around it, smearing his own pre-come over his head and down around it, his thumb flicking the edge of his frenulum and causing a thrill of excitement. He keeps on steadily stroking.

When he feels Robert nearing the edge — now more than well-versed in his body — Aaron pulls off and hears the expected moan of disappointment. He gives him a kiss as he reaches for the lube, eager to avoid a painful experience.

He slides two fingers in, gently twisting and scissoring, Robert groaning and pushing down into it.

When he feels he’s ready, Aaron slides his now slick dick into Robert and gets a satisfied sigh for his efforts.

He waits a second for Robert to adjust to the discomfort, but all he gets is grunted, “Hurry up and fuck me.”

Doing as he says, Aaron sets up a punishing pace, the front of his thighs smacking against the back of Robert’s in a satisfying rhythm.

It’s not too long before he feels his climax once again approaching, having been at the edge of his fingertips all day. Below him, Robert’s busy stroking himself as he keeps on moaning Aaron’s name, punctuated by a gasp every time Aaron hits that special spot.

His neck is tipped back and his eyes are tight shut, his hand is rapidly pumping, Robert lost to the build of his own orgasm.

With his own edge within sight, Aaron makes a quick decision, he leans down, hips still rolling as he positions himself right beside Robert’s ear, and then whispers, “It was you I liked, not Pete Barton.”

He hears Robert’s strangled cry and his come hit his chest. It’s enough to make him come inside him.

:::::

He wakes up a few hours later to Robert on his phone, just laying next to him naked. The white light from the small iPhone screen illuminates the side profile of his face in a strong but gentle white glow; his features looking like he was sculpted from marble.

There’s a fondness in his eyes and a glow in his cheeks as he lays on his back, biting his bottom lip, staring at the screen intently, probably skimming the news on a gossip news site. (Aaron actually reads a few of them himself, a couple proving quite reliable in terms of casting news and breakdowns.)

“Anything good?” He asks, when he’s drunk his fill — though he’s finding that his thirst for Robert might be bottomless.

Robert doesn’t startle or even really flinch, just looks over at him like he was gently awakened. His smile is radiant — but more so in this light, white teeth flashing in the phone light, which also renders his freckles a little paler.

“Nothing as good as what’s right here,” Robert says, affection coming through loud and clear. He then lifts his right arm above his head, an open invitation.

Aaron accepts it, shuffling in closer, and bringing the covers with him. He snuggles in closer until his head is resting on the ball of Robert’s shoulder as he turns himself sideways on his left side. Robert’s arm comes back down, wrapping around his back and resting on the curve of his arse.

When Aaron turns towards the phone screen he sees instead that it’s a book, Robert’s attention instead captured by some kind of video.

It takes him a second to clock what’s happening on screen, because then he gasps in disbelief.

“Are you watching my episode of Black Mirror?” He shifts to gaze up at him, searching Robert’s face for any detail of an answer.

“Why?” He asks, horrified.

Robert turns from the phone to look down at him, and then says without any embarrassment or shame. “The first time I ever saw this, I knew I had to meet you.”

“You’re joking me,” Aaron barks a laugh. “My character was mental.”

“Yeah,” Robert agrees, his index finger now rubbing a lazy circle into Aaron’s hip, the feel and motion of it deeply soothing. “But you played him with such intensity.”

“Probably just thought I was fit, or something,” Aaron protests, rolling his eyes at Robert. “I spent half the episode naked.”

“Well, obviously there was that,” Robert concedes, but even with his playful tone, Aaron can tell he still means it. That he’d actually been attracted to Aaron’s acting.

“Does this mean you fantasized about me?” Aaron asks cheekily, even though he’s nervous about the answer.

“If I didn’t, I’d be mental,” Robert says with all the confidence in the world, like this is an undisputed fact.

He’d wanted to hear it, but it still makes him blush. Aaron rolls inward towards Robert’s shoulder. Robert’s hand and finger don’t stop their circling.

“Shut up,” he chides him gently.

“It’s true though,” Robert admits, voice quiet in the night, his face growing ever more thoughtful. “It’s why I wanted to do this project. Figure at least this way I’d get a chance to work with you.”

“More like, hoped you’d get a chance to shag me,” Aaron retorts, but there’s nothing in his voice but affectionate lightness.

“Not going to lie and say I didn’t dream about that,” Robert chuckles. “Though I did really hope you might be bisexual as well.”

“Worked out in the end, I suppose,” Aaron says quietly.

Robert hums his agreement. On his phone screen a younger version of Aaron fights against a male co-star.

Time passes, a few more moments go by, then Aaron says, trying not to keep the worry from creeping into his voice too much, “You know, if people find out about us, we might have to come out publicly.”

He doesn’t want to say it, but he feels like he has to, not wanting to cost Robert his career. “You could lose the Bond role.”

“I told you, Aaron, I don’t care who finds out.” It doesn’t sound flippant, and it doesn’t sound thrown away. It sounds sure as can be and confident. “Didn’t exactly take this job to prove I could do my own stunts. Though I think we both did well on that front.”

Robert pinches his hip as if to underscore the point, sending a spark of shock right through him. Aaron startles and arches his back closer, his bare chest now snug into Robert’s side.

“You’re an idiot, you know that?” Aaron grumbles poking his chest. Under his left ear, Robert shakes with quiet laughter.

“Yes, but an idiot you like,” Robert says when he can finally answer. “And an idiot you had a crush on.”

Aaron rubs his hip sorely. “I can still kick you out of bed, you know.”

“You wouldn’t do that to a poor, defenceless, idiot,” Robert offers in his defence. Aaron just rolls his eyes at it.

“Do you seriously ever shut up?” He questions, not really annoyed.

Robert’s voice is low when he replies, “Like I said. Go ahead and make me.”

Aaron comes up for a kiss.

:::::

They do come out eventually, when doing the rounds to promote the movie, and all their fears are brushed aside as it makes their stock rise even higher. Suddenly they have interviews scheduled with all the top publications, with joint profiles in both The Guardian and Variety. (Aaron asks his mum to go buy extras of both, his idea to have them framed as an eventual moving-in present.)

The movie’s a success as it starts to do the circuit, opening first in limited release and then going wider and wider. It garners great reviews, most of it focusing on Aaron and Robert’s performance, with plenty of mentions of their chemistry. (Robert particularly likes reading those aloud in bed, pulling them up on his phone not long after Aaron awakens.)

Amongst all the furor and the immense fan support, the good news start to trickle in. George Miller wants to meet Aaron to discuss a possible part in Mad Max, while Robert has a meeting about playing Bond after all. As it turns out, times are very definitely changing, and the minds in charge of the franchise have decided they’d quite like to adapt along with it. Neither of them expect anything to actually come of it. But they still joke about Robert wearing that suit and celebrate.

A few months after that, Harriet calls waking them both up, the film — as well as both their performances and her direction — having been nominated for an Oscar. They lay there together, Robert’s phone on speaker on Aaron’s bare chest, his cheek close beside it, neither of them daring to breathe in their shocked silence.

Aaron cracks first, a long and loud laugh, seconds later Robert starts to join him.

“Can you believe it?” Robert asks, lifting his head. The diffused sunlight from the hotel room balcony window backlights him, showing off his bedhead in all its glory.

“Sure I can,” Aaron shrugs easily, taking in the high cheekbones and the freckles dotting them, the unexpected pinkness of Robert’s lips. Then he looks into Robert’s eager eyes, letting the now-alert green and blue wash over him. “Harriet Finch, innit?”

“But you and me, nominated for an Oscar…” Robert quietly marvels. “Do you think we could win?”

Aaron just watches him, memorising this face, already planning their celebration. He brings a hand up, and cups Robert’s cheek, stroking a thumb across a warm cheekbone. Then he leans up, gives him a soft kiss, then lies back, his head hitting the pillow.

Robert’s eyes open slowly, and his smile grows softer; a small one that he reserves for Aaron.

“Reckon we could,” Aaron says, feeling himself return it. “Who doesn’t love a good love story?”

#robron #long post #robron secret santa #robron fanfiction #notforonesecond

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mininky · 6 years

Text

Enouement

Summary: Love wasn’t supposed to happen, you hadn’t ever really believed in it. And then you met two men who changed your entire life. (A story in which you look back on how you met your two lovers Kim Namjoon and Bang Yongguk and started your relationship)

Pairing: Bang Yongguk x reader x Kim Namjoon

Warnings: explicit sex scenes including oral sex (M and F receiving), multiple orgasms, threesome, praise kink, and no condoms (always use them in real life guys!)

Word count: 6.2K

(A/N) I don’t know if this went at all in the direction that the person requested was thinking it would, but I hope you enjoy this! I had a lot of fun writing this and I wouldn’t be surprised if I did some short drabbles off of this later on.

There's something about thunderstorms that make everything nostalgic. Tonight was no different as you gazed out the kitchen window, raindrops obscuring the vision to the outside world and pushing you further into your own memories. The corners of your lips turned up into a soft smile as you allowed yourself to reminisce. Being a tattoo artist had fulfilled you more than you ever thought possible. You had a job that you had dreamed of, the ability to live well creating amazing works of art on living canvases. You worked with fantastic people that inspired you and supported you. And sure, okay, so sometimes you had some insane clients and a list of ridiculous stories (like the two people who've asked for butthole tattoos) but really it was amazing. But perhaps the best part about your career is that it had introduced the love of your life. Two loves, actually. Kim Namjoon and Bang Yongguk. The craziest part though? You had never been the type to believe in love. Fate has a wicked sense of humor. Jaded, cynical, utterly unromantic that is how you used to describe yourself. You were still a little jaded, but your edges had been softened. Cynical? You did still see the darker side of life, the more sinister possibilities that lurked under the surface but you also saw the glimmers of positivity. Utterly unromantic? Well, you still weren't the type to think about cute dates. You were still more the type to give loving surprises in the form of leather and lace. But that was a step in the right direction. Just a few years prior you would have never even thought about surprising anyone. You had no one and wanted no one to give soft tender kisses or fresh flowers. You used to be the girl who refused to cuddle, that girl who gave the best head of their life and then a fake number. Oh, how time had changed all of that. Well, at least the cuddling and the fake number part. You still like to think your blowjobs were on a class all of their own. Everything had already started to change two years ago, possibly even earlier if you think back to the very first time you met Yongguk. You weren't the type to be intimidated easily, and that was probably why you had fallen quickly into friendship with him. You couldn't understand how others felt nervous around him (unless it was because of his good looks), to you he had always been gummy smiles and comfort. His deep gravelly voice was soothing to you, and the way how he spoke without hesitation on deeper subjects had only solidified your bond that had grown beyond coworkers who also watched soccer games together to full-blown friendship. What changed everything though was the day that you met his best friend. Kim Namjoon had come into the shop many times and had attended many outings with everyone but somehow you had always managed to miss him. That all changed when he decided to get a tattoo, and Yongguk had made sure that he saw you. To say you were nervous about the whole prospect was an understatement, especially when you found out it was his first piece. You were about to pop Namjoon's tattoo cherry, and the pressure was on. Yongguk created fantastic works of art, script changed from rolling letters into inked masterpieces. Apparently, he refused to tattoo Namjoon though. Joonie wanted something way out of his comfort zone, something that you had built your entire portfolio off of. Sacred geometry had become a bit of an obsession for you, an obsession that also paid well once hipsters fell in love with it. So when he told Yongguk that he wanted to get metatrons cube inside his elbow he made sure that he saw you. You were already overwhelmed with everything, uncharacteristically so, when Namjoon sat down in your chair. It was impossible to not feel trepidation at the task ahead, and that only grew when you found out how handsome he was. He was all dimples and introspection. (Later you would add destruction to that.) Easily you could understand why Yongguk was not only friends but roommates with him. It was odd how everything worked out. After getting to know Namjoon during the tattoo (once you finally got your hands to stop shaking that is) you had formed a friendship with him. It wasn't long before the three of you were hanging out constantly. Watching sports games, going to see local bands, cards against humanity nights. At first, you were afraid you'd feel like the third wheel. The girl who joined the friendship just a little too late, the one that never got the inside jokes. But the joy of just being around them stomped that out quickly. That and the fact that they never made you feel left out of anything. One night the three of you had been at a bar in the middle of a conversation about the woes of social and economic hierarchies when a rather angry man came up to you. A slew of angry words about you not calling him back loudly poured out of him. Namjoon and Yongguk were both quick to stand, the two of them defensive and seething while you watched in awe. That was probably the moment you realized that you needed to change, that you needed someone by your side for longer than just one night. What you were doing wasn't healthy for you or for the other people involved, not anymore at least. If it was something you did with more awareness and not as a cycle of dysfunction it would be one thing. But this wasn't it. It wasn't just about lust, it was about making sure no one got too close. An inkling of you said that maybe it could be them that would be by your side, but you pushed that idea way back into the dark recesses of your mind. After all, how could you possibly be in a relationship with two people? The rest of that night had been an emotional blur filled with honesty fueled by liquid courage. Every single fear of relationships poured out of you, Namjoon and Yonnguk had been quick to reassure and comfort but not with meaningless kind words. No, it went far deeper than that. They really listened, they were honest in their responses to you and that was the night that started everything. That was the night that you explained how growing up in a home with two parents who absolutely hated each other and watched love turn into a vile vat of loathing made you believe that love didn't actually exist. It was the reason why you jumped from one person to the next, afraid that attaching yourself to a person would end in misery. It was also the night that you told them you needed to change, that what you were doing was toxic to yourself. You deserved love, you deserved to find happiness. It would be another couple of months before anything actually happened, although you had noticed some changes. There was a lot more skinship, something that before rarely happened. Both you and Yongguk were the type of people that cherished personal bubbles but something about being so honest and growing so much closer to them changed that for all three of you. Movie nights were spent with lots of cuddles, local band night was usually spent with hands being held, but the biggest change was that you stopped dating. Maybe going from having sex at least once a month to nothing was what made you agree to the offer that Namjoon asked one night. Yongguk's birthday was coming up and you couldn't figure out what to get him. A jersey for the Netherlands team was already given for Christmas. A new vinyl? Well, he already had all the ones he wanted. A book of poetry? Namjoon worked at a publishing house and was already giving him a stack of books. So you were left begging Namjoon to help you pick something out as the deadline was fast approaching and not even Amazon could save you. That was was the catalyst for everything. He had made a joke about a threesome, something that both of them drunkenly admitted was certainly on their bucket list after you told them of one of your escapades. To this day he still swears that he hadn't actually expected you to agree. But you had. In fact, you had done so very enthusiastically much to Namjoon's surprise. He was so shocked by that turn of events that he had choked on his soda, spilled the cup over and then burnt his hands on the table stovetop when he tried to get napkins. When the two of you finally brought it up to Yongguk he just stared at you quietly before looking over at Namjoon and asking "this is your idea isn't it?" Neither of you could tell if he was happy or angry at this turn of events, his poker face had always been superb. It took some coaxing from Yongguk. He was the most rational of the three of you, the first to bring up questions about what happens after. You had all agreed it would be no hard feelings, no feelings at all. It would just be fun. "Come on Ggukie, we can finally cross it off our bucket list!" You could tell he knew that you already weren't sure if it was possible to have no feelings about this though. You already loved them, it's just that back then you had convinced yourself it was strictly platonic. It wasn't. You knew it wasn't the moment you thought a threesome was a swell birthday gift. But somehow, for whatever reason, Yongguk agreed. The first time had started very awkwardly with an overly excited Namjoon, a very confused and at first stoic Yongguk, and a painfully nervous you. Things started falling into place quickly though, a seamless blend of coordinated movements. Unlike the boys, you'd had a threesome before and you had found it rather awkward and tedious with others. This was nothing like that. Perhaps the feelings that had been bubbling up in you were what was needed for you to reach nirvana and why it was everything that your previous sexual encounters had never been. Luckily it had been every bit of mind-blowing amazing for them as it was for you, and it was impossible to just return to the three platonic musketeers (although Namjoon would later tell you that there was no way in hell they were actually platonic.) And then the unthinkable happened. What had started as a supposed to be a one-time sex thing turned into something more, and it turned into something beautiful. Love happened, it had been there all along but it finally became vocalized. It wasn't uncomfortable to admit it, and while most people would never understand it somehow the three of you just worked. There had never been any questioning as to how it would work, the three of you just fell into it and agreed to communicate any problems along the way. Most importantly? Friendship came first. No matter what would happen, no matter if it would end, the three of you agreed that you had to put being friends first. The pressures and concerns of being in a relationship never came with them. When one person is busy another is available. When one needs space but the other needs comfort there's someone else there. And then there's the sex. Too tired? No worries, somehow there's always at least two of the three of you that's good to go. But the best part was coming home to them. It was like this part of your life you never knew you needed. Sure some people thought the three of you were insane, and considering that you guys consider philosophy debates the best date night you probably were. (Although the time Namjoon convinced you guys to paint using your bodies turned out pretty fantastic and was a strong contender if it weren't for all the paint in unholy areas.) And yes you knew that wasn't the reason why people thought you guys were crazy but responding that way usually gave more entertaining results. Your thoughts drifted back to the first time, the memory so deeply etched into your brain it almost felt like you were watching it happen all over again.

You were sitting next to Namjoon on the couch across from Yongguk who was staring stubbornly down at the books that had just been given to him, his knuckles turning white around the edges. "We don't have to. It was just an idea, in fact just forget about it. I am so sorry that I made you uncomfortable that wasn't my intention at all and I just-" You were cut off by Yongguk as his attention landed on the man sitting silently next to you. "This was your idea wasn't it?" "Well, technically, yes. Although she agreed. We wouldn't be telling you this if (Y/N) hadn't." Namjoon's voice was calm, but you could tell by the way he was fidgeting with the pillow next to him that he was becoming more nervous by the second. "You can say no. It's okay, we just thought...you know..." "What's going to happen? I mean for god's sake Namjoon we're all friends. It's not going to just go back to normal after this...is it? Do we even want that?" "It can go back to normal if that's what you want. I mean, sex doesn't have to be about emotions..." Your voice sounded uncharacteristically small. "(Y/N)...it's always going to have some sort of emotion attached to it. Even if you pretend it doesn't, even when it isn't anything serious it will still have something. You're forging a physical connection, sometimes spiritual connection with that other person. I just don't want this to make a mess of our friendship." Yongguk's voice was softer, he gave a reassuring pat on top of your head as he spoke. You hesitated a moment before looking up to see a soft smile on his face. You tried to mirror his look but your lips felt shakey and resistant. Namjoon leaned back in the couch and gave a long sigh. "You know, maybe I'm just reading too much into it but personally I feel that there's a lot of sexual tension that's just bound to burst. If we're all on board with it, and we're all consenting adults then can't we just figure things out as we go? Who says that we can't have emotions? Who says that's a bad thing? Who says that we have to act like we know what we're doing all the time? If you don't want to, then that's fine. But if you do want to and you're only holding back because you're afraid things might get emotionally messy then that's just plain stupid. Of course it might but our friendship is too important for any of us to just throw it away." Yongguk sat in silence for a moment as he pondered this before looking back down at the books in his lap. "Are you guys sure you want to do this?" "Yes." You didn't hesitate to answer. If he needed reassurance you would make sure to be honest. It might sound absolutely insane, and you knew you really were. No sane person would decide to sleep with their best friends as a birthday gift. That didn't even matter to you so much though, really the main thing was that you wanted them. Both of them. You had started to feel something budding inside you, emotions welling up that you had been squashing under the surface. You didn't just want this, you needed this. You glanced back over to see Namjoon nodding enthusiastically, words seemed to be failing him as his brain spiraled into darker thoughts. Finally he sputtered out, "Come on Ggukie, we can finally cross it off our bucket list! Besides, let's be honest here. There is no way in hell you've spent this much time around (y/n) and not thought about it." "Not all of us are you Namjoon. Some of us can keep it in our pants and not try to coerce our friends into a threesome." "Are you saying I'm wrong? Because I think that that's just some bullshit." "Woah woah woah guys. Please, no fighting. Listen this was probably just a dumb idea, but there is no point in fighting. Namjoon, I appreciate that uh...well that you're very honest about wanting to sleep with me." Namjoon gave a sheepish grin as he turned bright cherry red. "And Yongguk I appreciate that you are thinking about the bigger picture. You're both my best friends, and fighting about this is ridiculous. It's even more ridiculous than me saying 'gee for your birthday I was thinking that I'll take two dicks at once' like it's some fucking magic trick. So let's just agree to-" Namjoon burst into a fit of giggles, escalating into a full belly laugh as he almost fell to the floor. Yongguk was soon joining in in the laughter and you watched the two of them in their fits of giggles with a look of surprise. Just five seconds ago they were almost at each other's throats and now they're laughing like idiots. "Really guys?" Yongguk gave a gummy smile as he wiped a tear from the corner of his eye. "You know what Namjoon, you're right." Both you and Namjoon jerked your heads over to look at him, a collective jaw drop happening in unison. "I mean, I trust you guys. I do. I trust you two with my life. Plus, I mean...I'm a sucker for magic tricks." "So what you're saying is you trust us with your dick too?" Namjoon gave a wide grin as you rolled your eyes at his antics. "Yes. I hope I won't regret this, but I am saying that." Silence lapsed over the room for a second at the weight of his words. This was happening. This was actually going to happen. Nerves started to filter through you and weighing on you with each passing second of silence. You almost missed Yongguk's next words. "So...do we...do we do it now? Do we...plan this?" You could feel your stomach drop at the thought of delaying this any longer. You'd already been in talks about it with Namjoon, and you had already planned on it being today. Now that it was becoming real, something viable and tangible in front of you, you didn't think that you could possibly wait on it. Nerves would consume you whole and overthinking would turn you into a ghost of a person. Before you could even think about it you were straddling Yongguk's lap. "Do you want to do it now?" You watched his adam's apple bob and his pupils widen as he stared back at you, hands balling into tight fists. "I..." He swallowed again, his eyes roaming over your body before looking back to you. "Now. If...if that's okay." Distantly you could hear Namjoon saying something about 'thank god' in the background, but your thoughts were too consumed on the man in front of you. For years you had wondered about how he would feel, how he would sound, how he would taste and now you could finally experience it. Hunger and need took over as you closed the distance, lips trembling slightly as you felt his. Soft, plush, perfect. Your hands shook as you laced them through his hair. It was almost magical to feel him melt into the kiss, his lips moving back against yours and hands gripping onto your hips. The feeling of Namjoon's lips on your neck shot need straight to your core. A low moan escaped you as your hips bucked, a chorus of groans resounding through the room at the sight of you rapidly unraveling. The next few minutes were a mess in your mind, the taste of Yongguk and the scent of Namjoon filling every moment. You became so lost in the feelings that you lost track of whose hands were whose, the only thing that was important was feeling more. Namjoon seemed to be on the same needy track as you as he tugged on the hem of your shirt. "I think it's time for this to go. Don't you agree?" You broke away from Yongguk, a silvery thread of saliva breaking between the two of you as you nodded back at Namjoon. In record-breaking time the three of you were standing in just underwear, clothing tossed in every direction (Namjoon accidentally tossed a lamp over with his shirt but none of you really seemed to care.) You took a moment to just drink in the sight before you, your eyes dancing around unsure of where to focus. Tall and handsome, both of them glowing with desire. Yongguk's tattoo's almost dancing under the warm lighting, Namjoon's skin casting a golden glow with its sheen of perspiration. Your concentration was soon broken by Namjoon's lips on yours, a clash of teeth and tongue. Unlike Yongguk who had been more gentle, more hesitant Namjoon was far past that feeling. His tongue was quick to take charge, his hands gripping and tugging at the soft flesh of your ass as you whimpered and writhed under him. Normally you would be the type to take charge in sexual situations, it was usually the only way you could trust that you would actually get a chance to cum. This time though you happily surrendered, you knew that Namjoon and Yongguk would make sure that you would obtain a glorious release. You also trusted Namjoon, you had always relished in the way he would take charge. Many times you had wondered how it would be to hear him utter sinful commands at you, his expert hands bringing you to the edge in most of your wet dreams. Yongguk was pressed firmly to your back, his hands ghosting around your taut nipples as he bit down on your earlobe. His fingers rolled the hard buds gently, and you bucked your hips into Namjoon's at the feeling of pleasure scorching through you. "I want to eat you out." Namjoon's words had you biting down on your bottom lip to try to stifle the embarrassingly loud moan that threatened to come out. You managed to finally give a small 'yes' at the realization that he wouldn't do anything until you agreed. Swiftly he pulled you onto the floor and onto all fours, at the look of confusion washing over your face he just gave a devious smirk. "Well baby girl there's more than just one of us here, and you're not the birthday boy. I think it would be unfair for you to be the first to have some action so I have a proposal. How about you sit on my face while you help out the birthday boy?" An enthusiastic nod from you and whimper was all he needed to push aside your panties. His breath was warm on your sex, teasing you for what was to come. You gave a wide smile up to Yongguk as you motioned him over to you. He still had a look of being torn between apprehension and lust fueled want, so you peppered small kisses along the band of his boxers before gazing back up at him through your lashes. "Ggukie, I want to suck your dick. Do you want that too?" Any apprehension quickly seemed to leave him at your words, his dick twitching at the soft touches of your hands ghosting over it. "God, yes." That was all you and Namjoon needed. At the same time that you sprung him free, his erection standing tall and proud drooling with precum you felt Namjoon pull you fully onto his face. For a moment you felt yourself stop moving, too emersed in how Namjoon's tongue was directly on your clit to do anything. Your eyes shut as a mangled moan escaped, your hips rocking against his mouth before Yongguk's hands running through your hair brought you back to him. You leaned forward slowly, your left hand holding onto his thigh to keep you steady as your right hand slowly pumped his length. Even your wildest fantasies hadn't gotten right just how beautiful he was fully naked. Muscles tensing at your touches, a small thatch of well-groomed pubic hair, and possibly one of the longest dicks you'd seen in some time. While he wasn't the thickest man you'd been with he was certainly one of the longest, the thought of him being buried inside you had your mouth watering as you gave a small kitten lick to his head. You relished in his taste as you lapped and swirled around him for a moment. Tangy and tart, utterly intoxicating. You licked one long strip from the base to the tip before slowly pulling him into your mouth, breathing out through your nose as you inched your way closer to the base and hummed small whimpers around him. Your brain was in a frenzy as you tried to keep your thoughts focused on him, but they kept swerving back to the lewd slurps and sucks coming from Namjoon. You could feel the familiar tightening and clenching in your belly, the need to reach your climax threatening to take over everything. But this wasn't about you, not right now anyway. The small grunts and groans coming from Yongguk spurred you on until you finally reached the base, the thick curls tickling around your nose as you rested there before swallowing around him. The feeling of one of Namjoon's fingers entering you had you coming back up for air, your hand fisting around Yongguk's length as you let out a long cry of satisfaction. Walls clenching around Namjoon's fingers and eyes glued to Yongguk. His jaw was slack, his obsidian eyes blown out with pleasure. "Are you going to cum?" You nodded at Yongguk, thoughts too messed up to even try to string together a full syllable. "I don't want you to cum unless it's around my dick or my say so." You felt Namjoon freeze under you and you couldn't help but whine at the loss of contact, your core clenching and throbbing as he shuffled out from under you his face shining with your essence. "Come here." Yongguk got down on his knees as he pulled your face back up to him. His kiss was languid, lazy as if he had all the time in the world, as if nothing else mattered and time was just standing still for the three of you. You could feel yourself dripping down your thighs as his hand cupped your sex before he picked you up and shuffled you around. "Do you have any idea how long I've wanted this? Do you have any idea what I would do for you? I get to make you cum first, I get to fill you up first. Do you think you can take that?" "Yes. Please fuck me. I need you!" Your words came out hoarse and whiney, shame had long gone. "Good." Namjoon let out a low groan as he watched Yongguk enter you from behind in one fluid motion. While before he had been sweet, gentle, and timid all of that was long gone. Everything seemed to fall apart as you felt him enter you, your core clenching down around him as he thrust into you. You would have expected him to wait for a minute, to pepper tender loving kisses on you but he didn't. The stretch wasn't overwhelming, the burning just a short-lived and almost pleasant sensation. He was too overcome with his own needs and desires to hold back as he pistoned into you, cries falling from your lips and legs shaking as his hand snuck down to circle your clit. The earlier orgasm that had faded away was quick to build back up, your eyes clenching shut and brain spiraling out. "Cum." You weren't sure if it was the unison of Namjoon and Yongguk's low voices and stern commands that made everything shatter or if it was just the fact that it was finally happening but you felt yourself sob and scream as your release shook through you. Fireworks bursting, toes curling, tears falling freely. You could feel yourself starting to slump over, your body turning into putty as Yongguk's firm grip around your hips brought you back up and Namjoon's dick tapping against your lips had you looking up at him. "God, you really are something. Perfect. Beautiful. Amazing. I wonder how that pretty little mouth will feel around my dick?" "She really is perfect isn't she?" Yongguk grunted from behind and Namjoon gave a wide grin as you dropped open your jaw. The two men worked in tandem. With each thrust from Yongguk pushing you slightly forward, Namjoon pulled back. Air was constricting around you, but he was careful to make sure that you had enough rest as he fucked into the back of your throat. Unlike Yongguk he was more girthy, the weight of him against your tongue was already leaving a pleasantly dull ache in your jaw. The sounds filling the room were utterly sinful. Wet squelches, skin slapping skin, grunts and groans, and the muffled and gagged moans coming from you created a lustful symphony. "God, you take me so fucking well baby girl. You really are like a magic trick. How the fuck do you take my cock in your mouth while Gguk fucks you so hard? You're fucking amazing. The best." You smiled up at Namjoon, his eyes glazed over as he met yours. Your face looked so sweet and innocent, but the tears running down your face and wrecked mascara combined with the sight of his dick disappearing in the back of your throat and Yongguk balls deep in you was enough to make him want to blow his load right then and there. You felt the need to cum well back up at the words of praise, your core clenching around Yongguk as you tried to let out a moan. Yongguk stuttered underneath you, his hips rocking into you sporadically now and Namjoon pulled back from your mouth to watch it unfold. "How are you so tight?" Yongguk's words came out through gritted teeth as your hands reached under to your swollen clit, Yongguk bending over you and pressing kisses onto your neck as the two of you reached nirvana together in a chorus of pleasure filled grunts and cries. His release filled you to the brim, and after two more slow lazy thrusts he pulled back. Namjoon was quick to pull you into a kiss before pulling you onto his lap. "Come on baby girl, you can take it just a little bit longer, right?" "Of course." "Good girl." He reached down and teasingly brushed your entrance before filling you up. There was a small burn at the stretch of his girth, but the mix of your arousal and Yongguk's release made everything slide into place with ease. You felt yourself melt at the sigh of pleasure falling from his bruised plump lips, and you took a moment to look at him. His pupils blown out, hair messed up and sticking to him with sweat. Pride fell over you as you realized that you did this to him. You made him look fucked out and sinful. If lust had a human form this would be it, and you felt a deeper emotion along the lines of possession stirring within you. "Now how about you ride me and clean up the mess you left poor Ggukie with? Think you can do that? Hmm?" "Yes, sir!" He gave a wicked grin as you ground your hips down into his, creating small circle eights as you leaned over to your left and licked away at Yongguk's softening dick. Yongguk hissed in over stimulation but didn't move away instead he just looked at you with a look of adoration as you happily licked him clean. Once finished you pulled back and grinned as he peppered light kisses onto you. Namjoon bucked into you as you ground down on him again, the force of it stirring stimulation to your overly sensitive clit. Your head flopped down into his neck as he took back over, his hands gripping your ass hard enough to leave behind bruises as he sought his own climax. Yongguk's hands deftly moving down to your clit had you crying out, and you swiveled your face up to see him giving you a gummy smile. "I think you can come again, give it to Joonie." You let out a string of incoherent curses, your body falling limp under their touches as you reached your third and final climax along with Namjoon. He stayed buried in you for a moment, both of you trying to steady your breathing as Yongguk left the room only to come back with water. You couldn't help but chuckle as he told the two of you "You need to drink, I can't have you guys getting dehydrated and passing out."

That first night you fell asleep snuggled up in between the two of them after a long bath. Reassuring touches, soft words of love and adoration. While it still would be some time before the three of you would agree to be in a poly relationship that night it was clear that this was right. This was where the three of you belonged. And maybe it was insane, maybe it wasn't the typical societal notion of proper love but it was love. In fact, it was even more than that. It was love, trust, friendship and you wouldn't have it any other way.

"Why are you still awake?" Yongguk's arm had snaked around your waist, his lips peppered light kisses along your shoulder as your thoughts came back to the present. "Couldn't sleep. Besides, rainy nights are always good for thinking." "Penny for your thoughts?" "Oh, it's nothing major. I was just thinking back on everything, how this all started." "Ah. Yes, those were some interesting times. Good things you were thinking about I hope?" "Always. Ggukie I don't think it's possible to think anything but good things about you." "I hope that extends to me too!" Namjoon appeared by your side in the kitchen, causing both you and Yongguk to jump at the noise. Namjoon's hair messy from sleep and pajama bottoms slung low on his hips. "Of course! What are you doing awake?" It wasn't unusual for you and Yongguk to still be awake this late at night (or early in the morning) but Namjoon was a working man. Unlike the two of you, he had normal set hours and didn't work on weekends or until late into the night. Usually, Namjoon would fall asleep first (loudly snoring might you add) then you and eventually closer to dawn Yongguk would crawl into bed. "Well I would be in bed, enjoying the comfort of cuddles and body heat and dreams but neither of you seems to want to join me so I figured I'd just join the two of you." He gave a loud yawn, his eyes blurry with sleep deprivation as he nuzzled into the side of your neck. "So, what were you two lovebirds talking about?" "(Y/N) was just saying that she was thinking about how we started dating." Yongguk started shuffling the three of you over to the couch as he spoke. "You know, I don't think I've ever really thanked you Joon. If it weren't for you none of this would have happened." "Mmm, praise. I like praise." Namjoon seemed to still be half asleep as he spoke, his head rolling onto your shoulder lazily after the three of you sat down. You were snuggled up into Yongguk's lap as you started stroking Namjoon's hair. A comfortable silence lapsed over the three of you before Namjoon bolted up, his need for sleep vanishing as he looked back and forth between the two of you. "Hey, you guys are off tomorrow right?" "Yeah, do you want to go out and do something?" "Oh there's that new exhibit at the museum we should go see!" Yongguk started listing off some of the pieces in the exhibit before Namjoon cut him off. "No, I mean yes we can do that but that's not what I'm saying. It's been a while since the three of us have...you know..." "Oh!" "Ah!" "So....do you guys wanna?" It was hard to keep your eyes off of his rapidly growing arousal. You'll never be able to understand how Namjoon can go from being half asleep to wide awake and very horny so quickly, although it wasn't necessarily a bad thing. In fact, it had become one of your favorite things about him if you were honest. Sleep didn't matter anymore, it certainly wasn't even crossing your mind until the three of you were laying a tangled sweaty mess of limbs. And you wouldn't have it any other way.

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v3digitalaustralia · 2 years

Text

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my-nameless-bliss · 6 years

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ALDNT Extras: January

A companion piece to Chapter 25 of “Alec Lightwood Deserves Nice Things”

Available on Ao3

Magnus stops outside the door. He’s already gone through the checklist. Twice. Once before he left the office, and once on the walk back. But for some reason, the sight of the door, the gold number plate, the buzzing awareness of ‘home’…

He goes through it again.

Pats his pockets, makes sure his cigarette case is still abandoned in his desk drawer and didn’t magically weasel itself onto his person. Blinks, makes sure his glamour is holding, strong enough to sharpen the bleariness of his vision and whiten the veiny redness in the corners of his eyes. Checks his breath, makes sure scotch and smoke have been thoroughly replaced with something light and innocuously minty. Tugs at the hem of his coat, the cuffs of his sleeves, touches a hand to his hair, makes sure he’s presentable.

And he looks at the door.

He doesn’t hear Max. There’s no crying, screaming, laughing, running feet. There’s no noise at all. It’s… still. Quiet. Calm. It’s not what he expects to come home to anymore-

Oh. Naptime.

Of course. Magnus hadn’t forgotten that this is when Alec puts Max down. And he hadn’t forgotten that this isn’t when he usually comes home. But somehow, he’d forgotten to put those two pieces together. He’s coming home early, during naptime.

He should have said something, shouldn’t he? A quick text, just as a warning. ‘Client canceled, coming home.’ ‘I’ll be home in 10.’ Something. Sneaking in unannounced like this, over an hour before Alec expects him, it seems almost… rude.

There’s such a system in place these days. A strict schedule. A routine. Magnus may not know what Alec’s routine is, but he can only assume that it’s as important as his own. That they both have a checklist that needs to be completed before Magnus gets home, before they see each other. And right now, Magnus is preventing Alec from going through his. He’s robbing Alec of the chance to do… whatever it is that he does. Whatever happens on the other side of the door, while Magnus stands on this side of it, patting his pockets, checking his breath.

He frowns. Because he’s being ridiculous. Worrying about going into his own home without announcing his arrival. He’s been living in this apartment for over sixty goddamn years. He doesn’t need a fucking invitation to open the door just because it’s afternoon and not evening.

He flicks his wrist, and the door flies open.

Shit, he hadn’t meant for that to be quite so… passionate. His magic must be a bit more inebriated than the rest of him.

And now, it’s the next phase of the routine. Lock the door, nudge the Chairman away so he can take off his shoes, hang up his coat, and…

Check for Alec.

Living room, then back to the kitchen, then the bedroom door.

No. He’s not out here.

Magnus takes a short, shallow breath.

Alright. It’s one of those days. One of the days when Alec doesn’t want to talk to him. Doesn’t want to see him.

Magnus isn’t sure why he’s disappointed. It’s not as though he finds those interactions enjoyable. Seeing that blank, performative smile. Hearing the empty words. God, the amount of times Magnus has asked how he is, how his day was, how anything is, and gotten a script instead of an answer. It’s automatic now. Alec doesn’t even have to think about it anymore.

He used to have to think about it.

Magnus sets his phone on the coffee table, and he almost wants to laugh. Because he feels a sharp twist of nostalgia, a longing for the good old days when his fiance needed to think before lying to him. Magnus misses when he could actually see Alec make that decision. He misses when it was a decision, and not a reflex.

The door to the nursery is cracked open, just enough for Magnus to hear the repetitive lull of Max’s nightlight. There’s no shuffling, or rustling, or blubbering, nothing to indicate that there’s any sort of problem. But Magnus pokes his head in anyway. It’s a habit, and an unbreakable one as far as he can tell. He doesn’t even know how many minutes, how many hours he’s spent like this, leaning against the nursery door frame, breathing, watching Max sleep. How many nights he’s wasted, just standing here, with a glass - or a bottle, on a bad day - letting midnight turn to one to two to dawn. Watching Max, always sprawled on his back, with one arm spread wide, and one hand against his forehead (he doesn’t suck his thumb, he never has. He rubs his knuckles against the side of his forehead). This is what Magnus does. He stands here, and he watches Max sleep, and he listens to Alec snoring in the next…

In the next room.

What is that?

There’s… noise. Coming from the bedroom. Movement. Hurried, almost scrambling. And it’s not normal.

The door isn’t latched, but it’s closed enough that Magnus still knocks. It feels like the polite thing to do. “Alec?” He nudges the door with his wrist-

And too much happens.

Or, no. Not really. Hardly anything happens. But Magnus isn’t prepared for it.

Alec is turned toward the bathroom door. One hand is out, like he’s reaching for the doorknob, or the lightswitch. And one hand his clutching the neckline of his t-shirt. He’s scrubbing, wiping it across his face…

His wet, red face.

For a moment, he’s motionless, wide-eyed, like his fight-or-flight instinct has failed, and left him frozen instead.

But it doesn’t last long. “Shit,” he whispers. His eyes close. His mouth tightens. “Shit,” he says again. He turns away from Magnus, sniffling, still wiping his face. Hiding. “Shit. Shit. ”

Magnus’s mind still hasn’t caught up to what he’s seeing, to the overwhelming amount of information in front of him. He needs to have a reaction. He knows he needs to… think something. To feel something about this. But he doesn’t know what it is. He takes a breath, because he knows he should say something. That’s what he does. This is where he says something. Alec is standing here, crying… and this is where Magnus says something. Says the right thing, and helps.

He opens his mouth.

And there’s nothing. There aren’t any words.

He forces air out of his lungs, swallows, moves his lips like he’s speaking, in case that could somehow trick his brain into knowing what he’s supposed to say.

But that doesn’t matter. Because for once, Alec speaks first. “Magnus, I-” he turns his face, but keeps his eyes on the floor. His hand is moving along the hem of his shirt, fingers spasming across each other. “You can’t- I’m sorry, but you c-” he sniffs, waves weakly in Magnus’s direction. “I can’t, right now. I just- you… You have to leave.” His expression crumples. His shoulders hunch forward like he’s been hit. “Please. I’m sorry, but I can’t. I can’t do this right now.”

Tears drip down his face, onto his shirt. He shivers with uneven breaths. His gaze is still locked on the floor.

Magnus realizes that his heart is pounding. He’s tense. But it’s not because of what Alec said. That’s oddly… unsurprising. Seeing what’s happening, what’s happened, Magnus isn’t surprised at all by what Alec just said. He’s surprised by what his response is going to be.

“No.”

It makes Alec look at him. Makes Alec finally look at him.

And Magnus makes himself look into Alec’s eyes. To see the redness, the irritation, the tears that still haven’t stopped.

Magnus swallows, and takes a breath. “No,” he says again, just to make sure he’d actually said it. He feels the weight of it. The uncertainty. The fear. So he fights it. He pulls his shoulders back, and tries to make it seem like he’s confident in what he’s doing. “I’m sorry, but I’m not leaving. This needs to happen.”

It sounds harsh. It feels harsh. So Magnus can only hope that everything else comes through as well. That Alec knows it, as well as he does. That Alec needs this as much as he does.

It’s impossible to tell, at first. Alec is still thrown. He clearly still hasn’t recovered from the shock of Magnus being home, of Magnus walking in, and now Magnus’s refusing to leave is making him…

Magnus forces himself to keep breathing, and he sits down on the foot of the bed.

He didn’t think it would happen like this.

He knew one of them would break, eventually. That much was obvious. He’s always known that this wasn’t sustainable. But he didn’t think it would be this. He thought he’d be here for it, for one thing. That he’d see it when it happened, not walk into it after the fact. He thought he’d see and hear and know what caused it, what finally made it… snap. He thought he’d be involved. A participant, not an observer. He thought he’d be sober (though perhaps that was a little unrealistic). And, more than any of that, he thought he’d be prepared. It’s been so long, after all. Surely by now, after this much time, he should be ready for this.

It’s finally happening, and he’s not ready at all.

Alec still hasn’t moved. Magnus isn’t looking at him, but he can hear him. His stillness. His irregular breathing. Magnus can hear him crying. But he’s fighting it, sniffling and gasping and trying to get himself under control.

Magnus still doesn’t look at him. He can’t. He knows Alec doesn’t want him to. He knows Alec can’t handle having him see this. It’s already bad enough that he’s here, that he’s aware of it. This one scrap of courtesy is the least Magnus can do.

Magnus tries to gather himself, to use these few moments for something useful. He tries to think of what he’s going to say. What he should say. What he needs to say. What Alec needs him to say. He’s been thinking about this conversation for so long. Imagining it, letting the scene play out a thousand different ways in his mind. After so many months, it seems like he should have gone through every possibility. He should have considered every version of this moment, and prepared for it. At least one of his imaginary scenes should have stuck in his mind. He should be able to remember some parts of those scripts, shouldn’t he?

Maybe it’s the buzz, the dullness in his mind. Everything is still pleasantly muted by those glasses of cheap whiskey. His heart is beating a little too hard. His face is a little too warm. His thoughts are moving a little too slowly. He tries to remember.

It must be minutes, or maybe his perception of time just isn’t working properly, but it feels like it’s minute after minute after minute, sitting here, trying to breathe, trying to remember what he needs to say.

Alec sits down next to him.

Well, near him, anyway. On the bed, but at the opposite side. They’re each at a corner, facing the same wall, looking straight ahead. Looking anywhere but at each other.

It takes Magnus a moment to realize that Alec has stopped crying. His breathing still sounds a little heavy, a little forced. Tired. But it’s… it’s calm. It’s something.

So. Here they are.

All of this, all of the pieces, all of these months, and… here they are.

Magnus breathes. In. And out.

“Well.” His voice is too loud in the quiet room. His throat is tight. He takes another breath. In. And… in.

And…

Out.

“I suppose this was inevitable, wasn’t it?” he says, with levity that’s pathetically forced. Because it’s not useful, it doesn’t accomplish anything, it’s just a useless observation. But for now, it’s the only thing he can think to say. “There had to be a limit somewhere. It could only be so long before something… broke.”

It feels like a diplomatic way to phrase it. Some thing, not someone. A vague ‘this’, distancing them from it. Like this is something that’s happened to them, not something they’ve done. Something they’ve become. It feels like a fair way to ease into the conversation.

Alec must not agree, because he… laughs. Sort of. Laughter was probably his intention, but it sounds more like a cough, and then a gasp. It’s quick, and quiet. But Magnus can still hear the bitterness in it. “You think this is the limit? Just ‘cause I didn’t know you’d be home early? This isn’t breaking, it’s just-” he makes that same noise again, that attempt at a laugh, “bad timing.”

Magnus looks at him. Alec doesn’t look back, but he must be able to feel Magnus’s gaze on him, because he closes his eyes.

‘Bad timing.’

So, this…

Magnus’s chest feels heavy.

This isn’t the… It isn’t the first time this has happened. This isn’t the first time Alec has sat in the bedroom, during Max’s nap, and-

It’s just the first time Magnus has seen it.

How…

How long has it been? How many times?

It’s always felt so… excusable. There’s always been a reason, a justification for what they’re going through. How they’re behaving. Stress, sleepless nights, being apart during the days after those first few months of always being together. There’s always been… something. Some external circumstance that Magnus could point to and blame. But none of that is enough to excuse this. Not even once. And apparently, it’s been so much more than once.

Magnus looks away again, back at the wall. He feels oddly detached, like he’s not really here, not really a part of this. Like it’s just another one of his imaginary scenarios. One of the ones that he can opt out of whenever he wants to. This is just too… much. It’s too much to be real. He can’t be expected to deal with this much. He doesn’t know what to do with it. He doesn’t know what to do.

He knows what questions he could ask. How long this has been going on, how long it’s been this bad, why Alec didn’t say anything, why Alec didn’t do anything, why Alec didn’t care that Magnus didn’t do anything either. But those questions don’t actually feel helpful. Because, really, Magnus still doesn’t even know what’s happening. He doesn’t understand any of this. And he hates not understanding.

There’s silence, again. A handful of moments, maybe a minute or two. Their quiet breathing. The muted sounds coming through the baby monitor. The deafening silence.

Alec takes a loud breath.

“Magnus, I can’t do this anymore.”

The impulse hits Magnus right away, and he has to force himself to stop - to keep himself from finishing Alec’s thought for him, deciding what he means by ‘this’. There are so many possibilities, so many things he could mean, and Magnus doesn’t know which, so there’s no point in guessing. There’s no point in guessing whether he just means he can’t handle what they’re going through now, or if he means more, if he means he can’t handle any of it, can’t handle Max, can’t handle Magnus, doesn’t want this life anymore-

Magnus closes his eyes, and breathes, until he can finally get his voice to overpower his thoughts. “What do you mean?”

Alec takes a breath that sounds almost eager, like he knows exactly what he wants to say. But he doesn’t say it. Maybe he’s second-guessing himself. Maybe he doesn’t like what he wants to say. Maybe he’s trying to stop and think through the words, instead of answering with an impulse.

In the end, a sigh gets out before any of the words. “It’s too much. It’s all… just too-” he inhales sharply, “too much.” The strain in his voice gets worse, tighter, the cracks and breaks hitting on every word. “I thought I could do it. I really did. I thought I could, but I c-”

He stops, and there’s silence. And Magnus pretends that he doesn’t know it’s because Alec is crying again - or at least, he’s starting to cry again, and trying not to.

Alec sniffs loudly, swallows a few times. From what Magnus can see in his periphery, he’s probably wiping his eyes, or rubbing a hand across his mouth.

Magnus still doesn't know what to say. Or, he does, but it’s… nothing. There’s nothing he can say right now. Nothing to contribute. No way he can help. He just has to wait.

He loses track of how many times Alec shifts, gathering himself. Because it never works. He doesn’t actually say anything. He gives up, again and again.

“I don’t know if it… if it got harder, or- I mean. I- I know it’s harder, like this, but I don’t know if it’s just that, or if I…” Alec clears his throat. “I don’t know if taking care of a kid is supposed to be this hard. Or if it’s just. Me. I don’t know if I’m supposed to be… better. At this. If it’s normal that I can’t-” He stops. Takes a shaky breath. “That I can’t do this.”

He doesn’t move, but there’s… there’s something else that changes. Some sort of shift, maybe in his breathing, maybe in his voice. Magnus can’t pinpoint what it is, but he can feel it. He can feel Alec collapse, even though he’s perfectly still. “I can’t do this, Magnus. I know I said I could- and I could, for a while. For a while it was fine, and I could handle it, and I don’t know wh- what changed. I didn’t think anything changed, but it’s different now and I can’t do it anymore and I don’t know why.” He gasps in, more like a hiccup than a breath. “I don’t know what happened. I don’t know what made it all so… I don’t know what the problem is. I don’t know if it’s something with Max, or if it’s me, or if it’s-”

He cuts himself off, but not quite as quickly as he’d probably meant to. Because he formed the next word, well enough for Magnus to know what it was going to be.

‘If it’s you.’

But Magnus doesn’t get to think much about that, because now that Alec has started, it doesn’t seem like he’s going to stop. “But I can’t handle it anymore. It’s too-” he gasps in another breath. “I can’t handle being here all the time, and I’m always alone, and Max is- he… he j-just. He’s always - and it’s always - he’s always… screaming, or crying, or sick, or fucking something up with his magic and it’s impossible when he’s like that, but then- even wh-” another gasp. “Even when he’s good, it’s not… it’s not easier. It’s not easier it’s never getting any easier and I can’t…” He gasps again, but this time, it comes out in a long, shaking sigh. “I can’t. I’m sorry, Magnus, but I- I can’t…” his voice sort of… sticks, for a moment. Like he’s going to say something else, finish his sentence, finish his thought.

But he doesn’t. He just keeps breathing. In little, uneven gasps.

And there’s…

There’s so… much. So much there. So much for Magnus to hear, and understand. He knows he should be thinking about it, thinking about Alec, thinking about what Alec’s just admitted to him. But he can’t, because he’s stuck. On one part of it, one tiny fragment of everything he’s just been told.

He looks at Alec. “Max is difficult for you too?”

Alec looks at Magnus. “What?”

Magnus’s heart is pounding again, almost too loudly for him to hear his own thoughts. “You… You always say he’s good for you. Every day, I-” his voice catches, gets stuck by something tightening in his throat, and he has to swallow to fight it back. “I ask you every day, and you always say that Max was absolutely perfect for you. But then I get home, and I deal with him, and he-”

It takes him longer, this time. He has to swallow harder. He has to make himself hum lightly. Make himself smile. “I’ve started thinking he must just hate me.” And he makes himself laugh. Like it’s funny.

Alec scoffs. And he looks away again, down at the carpet. “Well if he does, he hates me just as much.”

Magnus blinks, harder than he should. Harder than what should be necessary. Because that…

That’s certainly something, isn’t it?

Max is just as difficult for Alec as he is for Magnus. Alec struggles with him as much as Magnus does. Max can make Alec’s days just as horrible as Magnus’s nights.

And in a way, that should make this worse. Because Alec isn’t actually dealing with the idyllic image of Max that he’s fabricated when he tells Magnus about his day. In reality, he’s dealing with the exact same tantrums, and meltdowns, and outbursts, and sparks, and all the rest of it. He’s been struggling with a difficult child, alone, day after day, month after month. And he’s never said a word. And that’s so much worse.

But that awareness isn’t enough to stop the overwhelming sense of relief that rushes through Magnus so suddenly that he feels weak. Because it’s not him. It’s not Magnus. Max is a handful, capable of being a downright nightmare, but that’s just… how he is. He’s difficult. For both of them. Max doesn’t spend his days as a happy little dream, then suddenly burst into tears the moment Magnus comes home. Max isn’t crying because he sees Magnus, because Magnus tries to say hello, or hold him.

Max doesn’t hate him.

His son doesn’t hate him.

It shouldn’t be what he’s thinking about. God, the fact that Alec has been going through this shouldn’t be good news. Magnus shouldn’t be taking comfort in any of this. He shouldn’t be happy that Max is apparently indiscriminately awful.

But the relief won’t go away.

So he tries to change his focus. To recalibrate his mind and start thinking practically, to think about what he can say that’s actually productive. It feels foolishly shortsighted to think in terms of ‘solutions’ yet, but he can at least start… trying. He can try heading in that direction.

“I can stay home again.” It’s too simplistic. It’s lacking… so much. But it’s real. It’s a practical offer. “I can stop taking jobs. We’ll go back to how things were when we first brought him home.”

Alec sniffs loudly. “No, Magnus, you don’t have to do that.”

“I’m not saying I have to do it. I’m saying that I want to help.”

“But you don’t need to- you… You wanted to go back to work. You want to keep working.”

“I want to take care of my family,” Magnus corrects - and his voice is a bit more stern than he’d intended. He’s not controlling his tone as well as he wants to. “I would never have wanted to adopt Max in the first place if I didn’t want to raise him.”

Alec shakes his head, fidgeting. “You do take care of him. And you work. That’s fine. It doesn’t have to change-”

“It is not fine!” Magnus interrupts. “This is not fine, Alec. This is something that needs to be fixed, and if-”

“Magnus-”

“If this isn’t working, we need to figure out something else. And you can’t honestly think that I care more about working than being-”

“It’s harder when you’re here.”

It…

It lands like a punch.

Magnus tries to remember what… he was saying. The words are gone. He’s… winded.

Alec still isn’t looking at him. He’s still looking at the carpet. His lips are pressed together. He’s breathing too heavily. Like saying it was a feat. Like it took energy. His hand is clutching his knee, and it’s trembling a little. He blinks a few times. Quickly. “It’s harder, and-” a deep, shaking breath, “and I know you feel the same way. You have to,” he says, like pleading.

And he’s…

He’s right. Magnus hates it, hates hearing it, hates knowing it, hates how true it is. And he hates that Alec feels it.

He gathers himself, as best he can. “Yes. It is.”

Alec deflates a little. Relieved. Like he’s grateful that they agree about this awful, awful thing. “So there’d be no point, unless that… changes. Unless we can…” he trails off, but with a sense of finality. An acknowledgement that he doesn’t know how to finish. He doesn’t have any solutions. Any answers.

Answers. Solutions.

Right.

Magnus forces himself to keep thinking. Keep his mind going. Keep himself focused on the logical and the possible, so he can’t slow down enough to… feel. He needs to keep himself thinking, so he can’t feel any of this. He can’t handle feeling this yet.

“Then we need to change it,” Magnus says, with what little conviction he can muster. “We have to figure out what needs to change, and we need to fix this.”

Alec makes a few weakly surprised noises. Maybe he’s trying to laugh again. Maybe it’s a scoff. “Yeah, that’s it. We just need to fix everything.” His voice is tired, but sharp. “Why didn’t I think of that?”

“Alec,” Magnus warns.

“If I knew what to do to make this better, I would have fucking done it by now,” Alec snaps with a sudden flare of anger. But he sounds… unsure. He sounds defensive.

Magnus takes a deep breath, because it’s getting uncomfortably difficult to keep his voice quiet. To keep himself calm. “I’m well aware of that. Which is why we need to talk about this, so we can work something-”

“I know!” Alec hunches over himself, elbows on his knees, face in his hands. But his fingers are tense, curling into his hair, his palms pressed to his eyes. He makes a few short sounds, like the beginnings of words that he immediately abandons.

After a few more moments, he sighs, and his hands drop away from his face. “I know, I just…” he brings one of his hands up to his head again, running his fingers through the back of his hair, much more gently this time. “Yeah. Okay.” He closes his eyes. “Yeah, we can-”

There’s fussing from over the monitor. A vague gurgling, then a few wet coughs.

Then Max starts crying.

And Alec breaks. His face crumples, his eyes squeeze shut, his posture damn near gives out. “Shit.” He presses a hand to his face. He sniffles a few times, probably trying to cover up the few weak, pained noises that get stuck in his throat. He shakily gets to his feet-

“Alec.” Magnus stands up, putting himself between Alec and the door. “I’ll check on him. Just sit down for a minute.”

Alec shakes his head, over and over, blinking too hard, fighting too hard. “No. No, I’ll go.” His voice is broken, and so small that it’s barely audible over the sound of Max’s wailing.

“You still need a moment. Get a glass of water, and-”

Alec takes a step forward. “I can handle this, Magnus.” Tears are still slipping down his face.

“I know,” Magnus says, with a bit more severity. “And so can I. And you can stay here.”

Max gets louder, shriller.

“No, I have to-”

“You don’t. You can let me deal with this, and you can take some time to calm down.”

Max is screaming - over the baby monitor, and through the bedroom wall.

Alec sniffs, blinks, frantically wipes his tears with the palm of his hand. He moves forward again, into Magnus’s space, starting to shove past him. “No, no no I can’t, I have t- I can’t-”

“Alec, sit down! ”

Fuck.

Magnus takes a deep breath.

Fuck.

Alec is motionless, face wet, eyes wide but brows furrowed. It’s surprise, mostly. Maybe some confusion. Because Magnus doesn’t shout like that. They don’t shout like that. They don’t yell at each other. Even when things get heated, it’s just… not what they do.

It must be all that fucking alcohol. Magnus knew this wasn’t a good conversation to have when he’s not sober.

Max is still screaming.

Magnus takes another deep breath.

“Please,” he says quietly, “sit down.” He turns his wrist and conjures a glass of water into his hand. “Drinking this will help you feel better.” He starts to hold it out… but on second thought… he magicks it onto Alec’s nightstand instead. Gives it a bit more distance. “I’ll go check on Max.”

And he leaves the room.

It feels almost surreal, walking out of that. Crossing the threshold into the living room is like… waking up. Looking up from a book. It takes a moment to reorient himself, to remember what… else there is, out here. Everything outside of that conversation. It’s such a palpable change that it’s almost enough to make him wonder if that was even real.

Max is still screaming.

Well, that’s certainly real.

The unbroken routine of their daily life is once again made abundantly clear by Max’s immediate confusion when he sees Magnus step into the nursery. Magnus being home during naptime is obviously just as much of a shock to Max as it was to Alec. It’s enough to make him stop screaming for a moment, so he can blubber and snuffle and rub his hand across his snot-covered face and ask, “P-Papa?” through hiccuping breaths.

“Blueberry,” Magnus responds, trying to sound at least somewhat playful.

And it’s jarring, trying to be light, trying to act like everything is completely normal as he starts running through the list of things that could potentially be wrong with Max. It feels so ordinary, so routine. Of course, that’s probably because it is. Max doesn’t differentiate much between minor nuisances and life-threatening situations, so trying to deduce the cause of his meltdowns is more-or-less a daily responsibility. By now, they’ve gotten used to checking for problems in descending order of severity. A standard, consistent list.

And it’s not particularly surprising to get to the end of that list and realize that there’s nothing wrong at all. Max isn’t talking - just whining out some half-hearted gibberish whenever Magnus directly asks him something.

So it’s just boredom, then. Max has decided he’s done with naptime, and wants to be freed from his sleep prison.

Which means that the only thing Magnus can do is calmly explain that naptime won’t be over for a few more minutes, and if Max doesn’t want to sleep anymore, he has to wait nicely until it’s time for them to come get him. Max certainly doesn’t seem thrilled with this outcome, but Magnus manages to settle him back down, and even gets a few kisses (though they seem suspiciously passive-aggressive for a two-year-old) before he leaves.

He pulls Max’s door behind him until it’s mostly-closed… and then there’s a moment, where he’s standing in front of the nursery, looking over at the bedroom door. And he considers not going in. He considers turning around and going into the library instead, shutting the door behind him, locking it. He considers going into the kitchen, undoing the lock on the small cabinet above the stove to get at the few bottles of alcohol they keep in the apartment these days. He even considers leaving. Going back to the office. Going to Cat’s apartment. Going anywhere else.

But it’s only a moment.

Then he snaps out of it, shakes that idea out of his head. After all, this… this - whatever this is, it’s started now. He can’t very well act like things are the same as they were this morning.

This afternoon. An hour ago. Less than that, even. It’s probably only been a few minutes, hasn’t it? But somehow, walking into the loft earlier, assuming everything was the same as it’s been every other day… it already feels distant. He’s already stepped out of that moment. It’s already a memory.

He’s far enough away from it that he can really start to feel it. And it’s… heavy. He feels weight on his chest, dragging down into his stomach, he feels weight on his shoulders, strong enough to make him tense against it, he can already feel the stress of knots and a strain in his neck.

The bedroom door is wide open, but Magnus still knocks again. It still feels like the polite thing to do.

Alec has moved from the bed to his armchair. He’s shoved the footrest to one side, so he has room to sit with his legs apart, his elbows on his knees. It’s the same way he’d been hunched over before, but it looks different. It’s looser, more relaxed.

He doesn’t look up when Magnus knocks. Or when Magnus takes a few steps into the room. Or when Magnus stands there, for several uncomfortably still seconds.

And Magnus doesn’t feel quite ready to say anything yet, to start all of this up again. So he takes the time, the silence, to just… look at Alec.

His face is dry now - but too much so. His eyes are still painfully red, his lips are chapped, his nose has been rubbed raw. Each feature is either too pale or too pink, and both look even more stark against the contrast of his beard, which…

It’s fuller, isn’t it? Or has Magnus just not been paying attention? He’s spent such a long time thinking of it as scruff, just a few days’ worth of not having time to shave properly. But it’s a beard, now. For some reason, he can finally see that. He can see how long Alec’s hair has gotten, in an unkempt, clearly unintentional way. He can see how poorly Alec’s shirt fits him, but he can’t tell if it’s a shirt that’s always been too large for him, or if he’s gotten too small for it. He can see that it’s stained, that it has holes, that it’s as old and worn-out as his boxers, and… why is he… when did he start wearing those? Magnus didn’t notice them earlier - there was too much else going on for him to take in something as trivial as Alec’s outfit. But now…

He didn’t know Alec still had any boxers. He’s always assumed he’d gotten rid of them. Ages ago.

Magnus didn’t know. He didn’t know he still wears boxers, he didn’t know he kept his old t-shirts, he didn’t know it’s been so long since he shaved, he didn’t know it’s been so long since he’s gotten a haircut, he didn’t know this is what he wears when he’s alone, he didn’t know this is how he spends his days, he didn’t know that he sits in their bedroom and sobs quietly enough that he won’t wake up Max, he didn’t know that it’s been happening for so long, and he doesn’t know how long it’s been happening, he doesn’t know how many afternoons he’s spent like this, he doesn’t know when else Alec breaks down like this, he doesn’t know if it’s happened when Magnus is home, when Magnus is in another room, when Magnus is in bed with him, when Magnus comes to bed and Alec pretends to sleep, rather than acknowledge him, when he spends hours lying awake next to Magnus, pretending to sleep, while Magnus pretends not to know he’s pretending, and how did Magnus not know? How the fuck can he be learning so much?

Alec can’t hide things from him. Alec has never been able to lie to him, Alec is bad at lying to him. The past year has been strange enough, hard enough, impossible enough when it was… something simpler. When it was less severe, when it didn’t run as deep, when Magnus didn’t know what it was. When he didn’t know that it’s really this. When it was obvious that something was wrong, and Alec didn’t want to acknowledge it, and tried to hide it, and failed. It was bad enough when it was just that Alec wasn’t talking to him. Didn’t want to be around him. Didn’t want to say hello to him when he got home. Didn’t want to say good morning or good night. That was already enough. It was already too much. It shouldn’t be more, shouldn’t be so much worse. Alec shouldn’t be sitting in this chair, in boxers and a ratty t-shirt, with a red face, slouched over like he can barely hold himself up, holding the empty water glass between his hands like he might give up and let it slip from his fingers at any-

His hands.

His fingers.

Magnus hasn’t looked at his hands yet. His left hand.

He isn’t… wearing his engagement ring.

Magnus blinks.

He blinks a little harder.

But that’s not-

That’s not… anything.

It could be anything. There are dozens of reasons, hundreds of perfectly normal reasons. It’s not as though their rings are glued to their fingers, after all. Magnus takes his off, plenty of times, for plenty of reasons, and none of them mean anything at all. It’s normal. It’s fine. It’s fine. This doesn’t mean anything at all. And if it does mean something, Magnus doesn’t know what. Magnus can’t tell anything from this. So there’s no point in noticing it. No point in thinking about it. No point in worrying.

He blinks a few more times.

It’s nothing.

It might be nothing.

It might-

He takes a sharp breath.

This isn’t the time. There are other… other problems. More pressing issues. He needs to… prioritize.

He can’t invite another problem right now. He can’t handle hearing anything more. Anything else. Anything worse.

He sits down at the foot of the bed again.

Alec glances up at him.

He looks tired. He look so utterly, completely exhausted.

It’s wrong. He’s not supposed to look like this. It shouldn’t have gotten this far. This shouldn’t be…

It feels like Magnus has just been seeing bits and pieces. For all these months. One day he saw that Alec stopped wearing makeup. One day he saw dark circles under Alec’s eyes. One day he saw Alec shift away from him, avoiding his kiss. One day he saw Alec wipe at his eyes - and Magnus asked him what was wrong, and he saw Alec smile, and say “nothing”. And each piece was excusable. Each piece was troubling, but not enough to be a problem.

And now he’s seeing the whole, and he can’t… He can hardly bear to look. He’s suddenly overwhelmed by how badly he wants this to change. How badly he wants things to be better. How badly he wants Alec to be better. To be happy again. He needs Alec to be happy again.

Alec looks down at the glass in his hands. He shakes his head a bit.

“How did it get this bad?”

Magnus feels a little pang of surprise, caught off-guard by hearing Alec articulate exactly what he was already thinking.

Alec starts absently twirling the glass. “It shouldn’t’ve- it’s not…” he sighs out through his nose. “It doesn’t seem like… the type of thing that happens to us. ” He looks at Magnus again. “I thought we were better than this.”

Magnus almost laughs. It’s a fast, hard impulse. Because that sounds so true. It sounds like something Magnus would have believed, a year ago. And after so much time, it’s almost… strange, to hear Alec say something he agrees with. To hear Alec say something real. Something honest.

He doesn’t laugh, but he makes himself raise an eyebrow, and does his best to smile. “Well, I suppose there was never a chance that having a baby would make anything easier for us.”

Alec exhales, and his shoulders move, and the corner of his mouth almost starts to lift.

And it’s almost a nice moment.

A bit of noise starts in the nursery, barely enough to be picked up by the monitor. It’s not crying, but it’s not a happy sound, either. Max snuffles a little, whimpers a little. Not enough to be crying, or gibberish, or anything more than a reminder that he’s unhappy.

There’s a change in Alec’s face. It’s small enough that it probably wouldn’t even be noticeable, if they weren’t looking at each other so closely, second after second. It’s his eyes, maybe something with his forehead. It looks like acknowledgement, or maybe surrender. It looks like he was going to say something, and changed his mind. Whatever he was going to say gets abandoned, blinked out of his eyes, and instead he says, “What do we do now?”

His voice is quiet. Tired. More than a little frightened.

Magnus has to look away. He breathes, slowly, until his throat feels steady.

He stands up. “Now, you’re going to take a shower, and put on some clean clothes. And I’m going to get Max up, and start something for dinner.”

Alec’s eyebrows tilt up. His mouth tightens. His eyes look a little wetter than they should. “That’s not what I mean.”

“I know.” Magnus takes a deep breath. It comes out a little shakier than he’d like. “But right now, it’s the best we can do.”

#alec lightwood deserves nice things #aldnt #aldnt extras #shadowhunters fic #malec #my fic #aldnt related #hey look #i'm back five months later with MORE ANGST #tbf a LOT of you specifically requested this scene #so like #that's on you #please remember that things get better after this #hell even chap 25 ends much happier than this #so yeah #here's some magnus pov from all of that #content warning: brief references to alcoholism #ugh why did i write this #anway ENJOY

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oneshots-heaven · 6 years

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“Need Your Saving“ - Part 2

When old wounds aren’t fully healed yet, to trust someone new—a complete stranger—isn’t easy. Nevertheless Tom tries his best to make her trust him, but maybe there are still too many things left unsaid.

Warning: angsty content + cursing Bodyguard!Tom x Reader Part TWO of the ‘Need Your Saving’ Series

The water was starting to get freezing cold, yet she stayed in the bathtub, thinking about how Bryan was downstairs talking to this new guy and showing him around the house. It was better that he did it, instead of her. He knew her house better than she did, which was supposed to be the place she would have eventually called ’home’ or at least feel like it was. Her new bodyguard would live here, so he should get to know the house with a bit more happiness than the way she’d present it.

She couldn’t wrap her head around it. This was a completely new peak in her life, in her career, her downfall, in literally everything she ever did. After the world got to know her name, she started to get used to the life of a beloved celebrity. Most famous people wouldn’t admit it, but once you’re in the spotlight, you don’t really want to leave.

She learned that it was somehow a responsibility to share as much of your private life as possible with every single person on this planet because they wanted to feel connected to their idol and being transparent to them meant that they’d end up loving you even more. This thought scared her. It scared her so much, but she wanted this too much to let such a small thing keep her from pursing her dreams.

On some nights, she laid in her bed and thought about how her life would have turned out if she had stopped herself from pursing this career and stopped following her actual dream. Would it be easier? Would it be as rewarding and amazing as now? She asked herself many questions in nights like that, but the most important one—the one she always ended up with—was if she would be happier than she was right now.

But she never quite knew the answer to that and laid awake until the sun went up.

All of this used to be her dream. When she was younger, she often got frustrated that all those other kids found a thing for themselves, something for what they developed a passion for and she was left with nothing. Nothing spoke to her, although she tried most of the things, until she tried out acting in her school theatre club. Her first little theatre play was in her eyes her most rewarding success to this day. It was the day she knew that acting was the one thing she wanted to purse in the near future.

She worked hard to earn her spot in Hollywood—harder than she imagined it to be. Competing with endless other girls, she always tried to improve herself and then prove it to new producers and new film companies because she knew that she had the talent to be successful and deliver what they were looking for.

Although it was a rough start with the chances of losing always being closer than the ones of winning, her career ended up booming. Over one night, millions of people learned her name and she became an icon of her generation. People praised her.

Bryan was one of the first people she got to know in Hollywood and he had supported, believed and been there for her since day one and ever since then he told her that success can be overwhelming, warning her that it eventually could turn someone into a person they’re not. He kept her on the ground and if it was going crazy, he cut her off from working and sent her back home to her friends and family. He never wanted to let the fame get over her head and perhaps she will forever be thankful for that. No matter how difficult it sometimes was between him and her, he was the best mentor and manager she could asked for.

At the beginning, she just wanted to act and auditioned for various roles, no matter how big or small it was. As time went by, people began to put meaning and worth to her words and persona and she realized that her voice had a certain power and she just couldn’t live this god damn glamorous Hollywood life without actually trying to make a difference. She took on more roles with meaning behind them, acted in dramas with serious topics.

Her latest project seemed to be just another one of those movies. Maybe critics would see it like that, but this project meant so much to hear. Reading the script, I felt related to character more than she did with any other she ever played. The story was close by heart, yet she hesitated to take on the role. She tried to tell herself that it would be therapeutic and help others, while Bryan believed it would only trigger her to fall into this deep, black emptiness again. He was done with that, he couldn’t handle it another time and he especially didn’t want her to go through that again.

However in the end, she was the one who made the choices. So she did the project and he was right.

It did rip open her wounds that she was so desperately trying to heal, however it felt like it was necessary. She knew that it would happen, but she filmed the movie anyway, telling herself over and over again that it needed to be heard. She tried to be confident in her decision, keeping herself protected from any harm in order to get better again and then all of the sudden, everything went down in a nasty disaster dragged out by the press.

Almost jerking her hands up too quickly, she wiped away the tears before she pushed herself out of the bathtub, quickly grabbing a towel to wrap around her trembling body. There was only one time during which she seriously hated her body and her overall appearance. It never had to do with the pressure in Hollywood. She ignored that as good as she was able to because there were so many other things in life that were more important than a beauty standard.

When she looked at herself in the long mirror now, she couldn’t stare at her reflection for more than five seconds. Five painful seconds that she immediately wanted to erase from her memory.

She didn’t glance in the mirror on this day. Instead she walked straight to her bedroom, changing into some comfortable clothes in which she could hide her body and looking absolutely not perfect at all. Her hand was reaching for her favorite washed out grey sweatpants when she suddenly held in. Downstairs was a man that she didn’t know at all but he would be around for a while. There was this small urge to grab some nicer clothes and walk back into the bathroom to look more put together before she would walk down to join Bryan and him.

In the same moment, she noticed how she was bullshitting herself again. There was no way in hell she was able to put on the most stressful act up 24/7 only because she didn’t want this man to see what was really going on. He probably already knew everything and might even judged her but there was nothing she could do about it. She had to face it and let him see all the ugly parts of her too. It was his job.

She grabbed the sweatpants and a soft sweater determined. She wouldn’t hide, not again.

* * * * *

Usually, he was good at controlling his own temper and feelings to manage to keep a perfectly calm appearance to his clients. It was necessary to let them always know that he had everything completely under control, even if he didn’t. It was his job to make them feel safe, no matter what was actually happening.

He was good at it—right until now. Now he caught himself sitting on a big, comfy couch owned by a young woman that he didn’t know and he believed she rarely sat here and enjoyed the view over the hills. She wasn’t happy in this house, he realized that right when they had entered it. There was no spark in her eyes of relief that she was finally home, instead she looked lifeless.

The film company hired him, saying they were looking for one the best bodyguards they could find. His boss recommended him himself, telling them that he was known for doing a solid, professional job.

He never stayed long with people. Usually, people hired him when things were bad, in fact really bad, until everything was halfway alright again, then he would leave them and although they would be thankful for everything he might had done for them, it always left both parts with a weird feeling in their guts. He would see tabloids of the people he once protected. He would see photos of them being at the happiest point in their lives or back at a bad place again, but he always told himself that it wasn’t his business anymore, yet he was never able to look at those photos without exactly knowing what that person went through and how they really are.

Hollywood was a bad place. He’d even say it was the worst place on earth for a human to be truly happy and he had the strong belief that it always had been this way. This was a place filled with gold-digging, manipulative and disgusting people who wanted to make big money out of the film industry. There was no denying that there were great things about it too, but the bad things overweighted because they teared people apart and destroyed their lives until there was nothing left of it.

He couldn’t remember what drew him from opting up from his police training to professional bodyguard training in the first place. When he looked back on his career, he only ever realized that all those people needed him to protect them from this harsh world and he felt proud to be able to be there for them. He always told himself that it would be one person less that had a shitty life in this all seemingly glorious industry.

His thoughts are all over the place but they always returned to her, knowing that she was upstairs showering for almost an hour. Somehow he could understand it that she was so off when she met him. This was a new situation for her as her manager explained to him that she never had a bodyguard that stayed with her the entire time. He even warned him that she could be a little cold to him, but that he better not take it to heart.

When he walked into the office this early evening, he expected to see the same picture—a tired superstar that was wearing this perfect mask on their face looking absolutely polished. And then she sat there, looking so effortlessly without any obvious flaws that it hurt and almost disgusted him. He knew this sort of cover-up well enough and it was sickening. He may hadn’t read her file and the psychological writing but he wasn’t fucking blind.

It was clear that the smile on her face was faked, it looked like she hadn’t genuinely smiled in the months. She resembled a corpus more than a breathing person and for whatever reason, this time it was driving him mad. He wanted to know more aside from the little he already knew from the obvious media. He wanted to hear the truth out of her mouth. He wanted to know every so little and fucked up details that turned her into the person that stood in front of him.

But for the first time during his job, he was scared.

He was scared of how he would react when she would tell him.

The footsteps were quiet, yet he heard them and turned to the open entrance of the living room, standing up and waiting for her to enter the room. When she appeared in the doorframe, he let a breath of relief. She was wearing a pair of comfy looking sweatpants paired with a sweater and with her wet hair framing her blank, make-up free face. This was her without any of her masks on.

He was not going to lie, it surprised him. Usually, his clients declined him seeing them without make-up or had a hard time getting used to him and tried to cover up her mental and physical condition by lying to his face or overdressing themselves but she seemed to try to get over it quickly. Almost as if she was ripping off an adhesive tape.

“Hello,“ came suddenly out of her mouth in a soft, quiet voice.

“Hello,“ he greeted her back with firm voice.

She pulled on the sleeves of her sweater to stretch it over her palms, starring everywhere but at him. Understandable, giving how awkward and slightly uncomfortable this helpless situation was for not only her but also for him. “Is Bryan gone?“ she then asked, still not glancing at him.

“Yes, he said his wife and kids await him for dinner, but he apologizes for not staying.“

She nodded, “Did he explained everything to you? Or do I need to explain anything else to you?“

“No, it’s fine. He told and showed me everything I needed to know.“

He saw her nodding a couple of times more, biting her lips while doing so and standing on the same spot as before. She was beyond uncomfortable with this situation.

No wonder, he thought. And it would stay that way if he didn’t do anything against it, he needed to break the ice somehow, so he took his chance and tried to offer her something, “Are you hungry? I could cook us something if you would like to.“

Her head shot up, firstly letting his gaze meeting her surprised one. “Um,“ she stuttered lightly with wide eyes, “yes, that would be nice.“

“Okay great,“ he said as he turned around to walk to the kitchen. Luckily, it was fairly easy for him to remember the floor plan of the big house. She followed him from the living room to the equally big kitchen that was nearby.

“Do you like cooking?“

“No,“ she replied short. “I can’t cook that well but I try my best.“

For a moment, she hesitated and he gave her the time she needed, before she asked, “Do you like cooking?“

“I do. My mum showed me many receipts,“ he explained. “Gordon Ramsay most definitely won’t praise me but I believed I’m skilled enough to cook something eatable. Will you help me find the things I need?“

“Uh-huh,“ she mumbled, taking a seat on one of the bar stools and watching every move he was making. It worked as a calm teamwork, he asked for certain things he needed after he took a glance into what the fridge had to offer and she explained where he could find it.

By the next weeks, he’d know this kitchen by heart. She gave credit to Bryan and her maid for the filled fridge where he found everything he needed. He hesitated—he should have known that she didn’t simply go out and bought this food all by herself. He didn’t judge her for that because he knew that within seconds, people would recognize her and make even groceries shopping an impossible task. Instead he caught himself once again pitying her.

He pushed his thoughts aside and concentrated on not burning down her kitchen. Once in a while, he glanced over to her, seeing her either watching him or looking like she was somewhere else with her thoughts. It didn’t go unnoticed by him that her phone was laying faced downward on the kitchen counter. Not once she grabbed it, or even touched it. She probably hadn’t post on one of her social media accounts by herself for months. He knew that people like Bryan took care of such things.

Bryan Stevens seemed to be a good guy, not like the usual managers around Hollywood. He may was one of only hundred decent people in this industry as he appeared more like a stressed-out, non-stop caring stepdad of her rather than her manager and their relationship as far as he noticed it was built around this feeling.

“For how long have you been a bodyguard? Bryan said you are one of the best out there. That takes some years.“ she questioned, pulling him out of his thoughts back into reality. He looked up for the pan over to her. Once again, she had the sleeves pulled over the palms of her hands, looking stressed but her glance was clam, just as much as her breathing, although he could hear it clearly. She was in a calm, yet nervous state.

“You’re nervous,“ he said, concentrating on the chicken he was cooking in the pan, “because you’re not used to me being around, but it doesn’t quite scare you off. You’re brave, trying to face me, aren’t you?“

“Is that your analyze of me?“

“Yes,“ he replied. “And to answer your question, I never wanted to become a bodyguard. At least, I didn’t plan on. I did two years of police service in my hometown until a private personal security company wanted to give me a job and somehow along the way, I ended up protecting people, instead of making them follow the law.“

“Do you like it?“

Her question made him raise a brow, looking up one more time. “You mean protecting people?“

She nodded quietly.

His mouth twitched, not expecting such a simple question. Maybe because he had never been asked this before. Most people were only interested in asking about the people he had protected, asking for dirty secrets and more, but none ever quite showed interest in asking him if he even liked doing this job or not.

“Yes, I believe I do. I can sleep better at night when I know I protected my people.“

Now, his words made her mouth twitch slightly. Immediately, he pressed his teeth in his bottom lip to stop himself from smiling over his little success. She was warming up to him, at least a little. That was all he wanted to achieve—to have mutual trust. He was convinced that he would get there soon because of her brave willingness to work with him and then suddenly everything seemed to be ruined.

Her phone went off—it wasn’t the usual iPhone ringtone, instead a personalized one which made her jump. Within seconds, she had grabbed the phone and sprinted out of the kitchen. He heard her jogging up the stairs and without thinking too much about it, he turned down the stove and followed her calmly with distance.

Just as he reached the stairs, he stopped himself, holding onto the railing.

”Why do they not get that I want them to leave me alone? This is not what I wanted. I never wanted any of this. No one needs to know, no one deserves to know!“

His grip tightened around the railing as he heard her quiet sobs that she seemed to press down. “I… I hate this. I hate this so much, Bryan. I just want it to end.“ she whimpered, before her voice raised. “Why, why can’t they fucking leave me alone, Bryan? Why?“

He couldn’t hold himself back. Before he knew better, he was running up the stairs over to the bathroom, finding her sitting against the bathtub on the ground with her hand in her still damp hair. Her head shot up, with a confused mixed angry glance at him. Her reddened eyes simply starred.

This wasn’t the first time he saw a client like that, which led him to know exactly what to do in this situation. He stepped forward, kneeling in front of her and carefully taking the phone out of her hand, telling Bryan to please call him later, then hanging up and pushing the phone inside of the back pockets of his jeans.

For a second, she simply starred at him but he couldn’t care less. There will be times where she will be thankful for his doings, as much as there will be times where she will hate his guts. Although he wasn’t sure if he was ready for the last part, he was still okay with that. That was his job and he promised her to do his job well.

“How about I finish our dinner and you set the table?“ he asked while offering her his hand.

next chapter

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