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twistedtummies2 · 10 months

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Top 10 Spirits of Chaos

Chaos is one of the most unusual concepts in the universe. It’s a difficult thing to try and understand and approach. Generally speaking, most people don’t like chaos in their lives: human beings rely on a sense of order and structure, and we typically try our best to get along harmoniously, if only for our own senses of self-preservation. We want things to go the way we plan, and we want things to work the way they should. Yet for as much as we try to fight against chaos, there are also times we feel the need to embrace it: the thrill of exploration, the joys of creativity, and the urge for celebration, many would argue, all come from our inner chaotic elements. Even science can show the fine line between these two ideals: science is a study all about finding a sense of order and understanding in the universe, but for all the study one can do, I think even the most ardent scientists will admit that there are just some things you can never properly explain. And even if you CAN, not everyone will ACCEPT that explanation, because we humans are always fascinated by the unknown and the fantastical. In fiction, just as there have been personifications of other ephemeral concepts or ideals - such as death, light, or various elementals - chaos, too, has been personified on numerous occasions. I’m not talking about characters such as the Joker, who are “Agents of Chaos,” nor am I talking about different alignments, such as “Chaotic Evil” or “Chaotic Good.” I’m talking about chaos ITSELF, personified in a character: tricksters and villains with incredible powers who exist for the sole purpose of sowing the seeds of mayhem and anarchy, with little rhyme or reason beyond that. I’ve always found such characters and creatures to be particularly fascinating, so I decided it was time to give a shout-out to some of my favorite interpretations of this concept. From the wild and the wacky to the purely destructive and wicked, these are My Top 10 Spirits of Chaos!

10. Chaos, from Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow.

Like I said before, we humans generally don’t like chaos in our organized lives, whatever we perceive that as being. As a result, it’s fairly common that chaos is depicted as an antagonistic presence. (In fact, I think almost every character on this list is or was at one point an antagonist in their respective source material.) Not all versions of chaos are outright EVIL, mind you…but this one certainly is. In “Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow,” our hero - a teenaged lad named Soma Cruz - discovers he is the reincarnation of Count Dracula himself. Many many moons before the story of the game, Dracula made a bargain with the Devil, which gave him the power to control and manipulate chaos. As a result, Chaos itself now seeks to turn Soma into Dracula proper, and use him to bring about the end of the world. The final boss of the game has Soma facing against Chaos incarnate, which first appears as a trio of strange statues, before revealing its true form, which is an abstract array of demon-like…THINGS, surrounding a black Sun. Chaos doesn’t have much actual personality in the game; it’s more of a force of nature than a proper character. However, when I think of the idea of a chaotic entity, this is one of the first things that comes to my head, so I felt it was deserving of placement, all the same.

9. Majora, from The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask.

I’ve never actually played “Majora’s Mask,” but I do know the game fairly well, from a sort of layman’s standpoint. The title, of course, comes from the main villain of the game: a mysterious entity known as Majora, who represents chaos and destruction incarnate. Possessing the mind and body of the Skull Kid, through a mask that contains their spirit, Majora uses his power to try and destroy the land of Termina, by drawing the Moon closer and closer to the surface of the world. The heroic Link thus goes on a quest to stop Majora and save Termina, before time runs out. Majora is a thoroughly motiveless villain, with a mercurial personality: a childishly amoral creature who literally creates worlds just so they can blow them up. It seeks to destroy and wreak havoc simply because that’s what it DOES, and its forms of trickery range from the relatively harmless and silly to the genuinely terrifying and cruel. A representation of primal madness, with multiple forms to do battle with, Majora’s origins are as unfathomable as its purposeless villainy. That, in a nutshell, is what makes this nefarious trickster so iconically creepy.

8. Dormammu, from Marvel.

Marvel is home to a LOT of characters who could, in some fashion or another, be seen as representatives of Chaos. Few such characters, however, are quite as powerful or ruthlessly destructive as the mighty Dormammu. The arch-enemy of Doctor Strange, Dormammu is one of the most dangerous villains in the Marvel canon: the overlord of the Dark Dimension, he has been referred to as the Great Enigma, the Dread One, the Lord of Darkness…and, yes, the Lord of Chaos. Dormammu was once a being of pure energy, who was banished to the Dark Dimension: a place where the laws of physics do not naturally function, and where mortals experience Hellish torment untold. Over time, this entity of chaotic evil assumed a corporeal form, and found a way to harness the power of the Dark Dimension. He thus made it his own kingdom in the universe. Dormammu’s ultimate goal is to conquer all worlds and make them part of his Dark Dimension, one by one, till only chaos is left. While he’s probably most famous now for his meme-worthy appearance in the MCU, Dormammu has appeared in various Marvel properties - from TV shows to video games - not to mention a great number of comics. He is one of the most unpredictably evil villains in the Marvel universe, as he is just as capable of conjuring up long-running schemes as he is impulsively destroying for the sheer sake of it. When you combine that unpredictability with incredible mystical and cosmic power, it’s no surprise he’s widely regarded as one of the most diabolical characters in supervillain history.

7. Chaos, from Aladdin.

Voiced by Matt Frewer (who actually has played a few trickster figures, including another character on this list), this incarnation of Chaos only made a single appearance in the Disney animated series “Aladdin,” a spin-off of the popular film of the same title. But while Chaos only had that one episode, many fans agree it’s one of the best and most memorable episodes of the show. Inspired by the Cheshire Cat, Chaos is a winged sphinx-like creature who is said to have “more magic in one little whisker than a palace full of genies.” It’s his level of power that makes Chaos so memorable, since, at first glance, he seems harmless: he’s small, silly, even kind of cuddly-looking. The problem is that Chaos has a temper, and when someone rubs him the wrong way, things can get nasty real fast; not even Mirage, an entity of pure evil, dares to risk making Chaos mad. On that note, while the past few characters have all been outright villains who represent evil and destruction as much as chaos itself…Chaos in “Aladdin” is different. He’s not evil, he’s just…chaotic! While he can be dangerous, he’s not necessarily out looking to deliberately harm anybody: he just doesn’t like things getting too repetitive or predictable, so he does whatever he feels is necessary to stir things up and have some fun. The issue is that what he finds “fun” isn’t necessarily always fun for everyone else, and he gets bored and/or cranky quite easily. You’re never quite sure where you stand with him, and the twist ending about his true motives in the story only adds to the uncertainty. It’s a shame he never showed up again, but I guess when your entire being revolves around not repeating the same game twice, maybe that’s the only fitting case.

6. Puck, from A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

I debated whether or not Puck - a.k.a. Robin Goodfellow - really earned placement on this list or not…I didn’t debate LONG, mind you, but I DID debate it. Easily one of the most iconic tricksters in both theatre and literature, Puck is, I would argue, the prototype for characters like Chaos and a few others who have yet to appear on this list: powerful troublemakers who aren’t necessarily evil, but delight in causing mischief with their skills and abilities, and don’t seem to mind much even when things go wrong. In Shakespeare’s classic “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” Puck is the jester of the fairy king, Oberon; while Oberon can be a bit of a prankster himself, Puck seems to take particularly relish in playing tricks on both mortals and fellow fairfolk alike. It doesn’t matter who it is; the Fairy Queen, a human nobleman, a dimwitted peasant…Puck will do just about anything to anybody for the sheer pleasure of it. He even has a monologue where he talks about some of his favorite ways to play pranks on mortals, and some of the things he describes (such as changing shape) sound very much like the sorts of things later chaotic tricksters would pull off with delight. While he’s never outright identified as an ACTUAL spirit of pure chaos, that’s certainly the role he fulfills; there’s a reason characters like Chaos can be described “Puckish.” So, even if it is a slight stretch, I still think he counts for this list.

5. Eris the Goddess of Chaos, from Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas. This is the last pure evil Spirit of Chaos on the list. Eris - based on the Greek Goddess of the same name - is the main antagonist of the Dreamworks picture “Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas.” Voiced by Catwoman herself, Michelle Pfeiffer, Eris is one of the most beloved villains in the Dreamworks catalogue: her whole existence revolves around causing trouble for the sheer sake of it, and anytime one plan goes awry, she always has another to back it up. Her greatest goal is seeing the entire world reduced to a chaotic wasteland, similar to her home realm of Tartarus. In the movie, she creates an elaborate scheme to steal the Book of Peace, and get the faithful Prince Proteus killed. If her dusky personality and crafty mind don’t make her an appealing villain, though, the animation on the character definitely will. Seriously, the animation on Eris is some of the most breathtaking I’ve seen in ANY animated motion picture: she’s a being seemingly made of smoke, and the way she MOVES, the way she changes her shape and size, and everything else that goes with it all just makes her so enthralling to see in action. Combine that with Pfeiffer’s glorious vocal performance, and she steals the whole show from top to bottom. This is one of my favorite Dreamworks pictures, and a big part of why is just because of Eris. There have, admittedly, been a couple of different portrayals of this strange and sinister Goddess over the years, but my guess is that when most people think of the Mistress of Chaos, this is the version they think of first…well, that or “Billy & Mandy,” but that’s another story.

4. The Cat in the Hat, from Dr. Seuss.

Much like Puck, most versions of the Cat don’t outright REFER to him as a spirit of chaos, but it is made clear that’s essentially what he IS. In the original books, he has a habit of appearing and disappearing at random, and seems to be able to do things that defy the laws of even Seussian physics and logic. Later adaptations and reimaginings of the character would continue this trend and expand on it: in “The Wubbulous World of Dr. Seuss,” the Cat is a seemingly omniscient figure who occasionally pops into the stories to create the conflict. “In Search of Dr. Seuss” features Matt Frewer as a mysterious Cat that others seem to fear for his power and mischief, but is generally friendly. By far my favorite example is “Seussical,” where the Cat outright IS a spirit of chaos, who acts as the main antagonist of the story by generating all sorts of problems, which the heroes then have to solve and get through. I’ll even throw the God-awful Mike Myers movie a bone (and you have no idea how SICK I feel TYPING those words), by saying even they did some interesting stuff with the concept, by giving the Cat his own chaotic pocket universe and playing with the concept of anarchy he represents in some unique ways. For everything the film did horribly, HORRIBLY wrong (which is…99% of every FRAME in that abhorrent disgrace of a motion picture), it at least understood that much about the Cat and found a way to toy with it. However, while our previous pick, Eris, is one of the most evil incarnations of this concept, I would say the Cat is the closest thing on this entire list to being a good guy: a consistent element with most versions of the character is that, no matter how chaotic he may be, he’s not by any means a villainous character. In fact, he’s an example of a character who uses chaos to teach a lesson: most stories with the Cat have him causing trouble of some sort or another, but he also always makes sure things turn out right in the end. Even his catchphrase seems to indicate this: “It is fun to have fun, but you have to know how!” For everything that goes wrong when the Cat appears, you also know it will turn out alright in the end. Chaos isn’t evil, it’s just hard to control, and that’s the best description of the Cat in the Hat one can ever offer.

3. Mr. Mxyzptlk, from DC.

One of my absolute favorite Superman characters, Mr. Mxyzptlk has been a thorn in the Man of Steel’s side almost as long as Lex Luthor (though not quite as long as two other tricky Super-Rogues, the Prankster and Toyman). A resident of the mysterious and cartoonish 5th Dimension - sometimes outright touted to be the God of Chaos (not kidding, look it up) - Mxy is a being of pure magic, and the source of many famous fables and fairy-tales. Stories of imps, leprechauns, and troublemaking genies, according to him, all stemmed from his long history of pranking people on Earth just because…well, why not? While massively powerful and usually an antagonist of the Man of Steel, Mr. Mxyzptlk isn’t necessarily an EVIL character. Some versions make him nastier or nicer depending on the needs of the creators, but even a lot of the meaner versions of Mxy make it clear that, before anything else, he’s a guy who just wants to have fun. Sometimes the ways he seeks thrills can be dangerous, sometimes they can be thoroughly harmless, but they are ALWAYS entertaining to see. He also makes for a great opponent for Superman, because he’s one of the few Superman enemies who is actually more powerful than the Last Son of Krypton will ever be: his near-omnipotent magical capabilities make him a force to be reckoned with, as he can go from just making someone slip on a banana peel to creating world cataclysms literally with the wink of an eye. Superman has to use his wits to outfox the wily Mxyzptlk, usually by making him say his name backwards, which banishes the little rascal back to the 5th Dimension for about three months. You can be sure, however, that once those three months are up, Mxy will be back in business. The character has been so popular, he’s made it into nearly every form of Superman media there is, outside of motion pictures, and various other comic book characters - such as Batman’s Bat-Mite, and the Impossible Man over at Marvel - are essentially copycats of the same concept. Mxy came first, though, and has been infinitely more popular than any later versions: when I think of hyper-powerful tricksters and spirits of chaos, this dandy gremlin is one of the first I imagine.

2. The Cheshire Cat, from Alice in Wonderland.

In the original book “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,” the Cheshire Cat is an enigmatic character. He’s actually one of the more helpful and friendly figures Alice meets on her journey: he’s never rude to her, doesn’t do anything to harm her, and even gives her advice. HOWEVER, he seems to enjoy terrorizing and causing trouble for the King and Queen, doesn’t seem bothered by the lunacy of the Duchess’ house, outright claims to be insane (telling Alice, famously, “We’re All Mad Here”), and Alice admits to being a bit scared of him, mostly due to his “VERY long claws and a great many teeth.” As a result, while he SEEMS generally friendly, there’s this decidedly dangerous edge to him that makes him difficult to pin down. Later adaptations and reinterpretations of the Cheshire Cat have REALLY played with this idea: I think the version that really popularized it most, though, and brought the concept to a zenith would be Disney. In the Disney version, the Cat is a seemingly omniscient, eternally perplexing character who gets Alice into trouble just as often as he helps her out. He gives her directions, and she DOES eventually get home by FOLLOWING these directions, but it’s an extremely roundabout manner of working. It’s also worth pointing out that his directions aren’t necessarily the safest routes: going to the Mad Hatter and the March Hare eventually leads to Alice being hopelessly lost, and visiting the Queen - combined with all the tricks the Cheshire Cat pulls while there - nearly gets her KILLED. This is the Cat that most people recognize nowadays: some versions are nicer or nastier, but most of the best versions of the Cheshire Cat play with this sort of chaotic quality to the character, which was really only hinted at in the books. Again, like Puck and the Cat in the Hat, the Cat is never outright referred to as a Spirit of Chaos in the books OR the Disney movie, but that is essentially the role he plays, and other interpretations have made that element more or less overt. I frequently refer to characters who play this kind of trickster role as “Cheshire-Cat-esque,” and that fact, alone, is all this big kitty needs to get second place.

1. Discord, from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic AND Q, from Star Trek.

I decided to lump these two together in first place because a.) both are played by the same actor, and b.) it’s kind of hard to talk about one without discussing the other, in my mind. The aforementioned actor in question is John DeLancie; Q was the first of these tricksters he would portray, appearing as a major recurring antagonist in “Star Trek: The Next Generation.” Q is the member of a race of all-powerful, all-seeing beings simply referred to as “The Q Continuum.” He starts off the show as an out-and-out villain, who uses his powers to play deadly games with the crew of the Enterprise and put them through various trials. However, things changed in the episode “Deja Q,” where Q is stripped of his powers and forced to live a human life. His experiences cause him to change his ways once his powers are restored, and he becomes less of a true villain and more of a mischief-making antagonist whose attempts to help out tend to lead to conflict. Q may not LITERALLY be a Spirit of Chaos, in the truest sense, but at the same time…he actually kind of is: his powers are stripped BECAUSE he causes chaos, and he is even referred to at one point as “next to kin of Chaos.” That sounds like qualifying evidence to me! Discord in “My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic” is directly inspired by Q, and has a similar setup: he starts off the show as a nigh-omnipotent villain, and it’s implied throughout the series he can be a LOT more dangerous than he often seems. However, in the episode “Keep Calm and Flutter On,” he forms a friendship with one of the main characters, and this causes him to change his ways; while he remains a constant presence, and usually an antagonistic one, he goes from a pure evil monster to more of a playful trickster. DeLancie plays both characters brilliantly, each having decided similarities but also some definite differences (I would say Q is a bit more “slick” than Discord, in several ways), and when I think of chaotic entities, I usually find these two are the first ones I imagine. And, alongside Puck and the Cheshire Cat, they’re probably the most quintessential examples of the idea I can use when talking to people. It’s hard for me to say which I like more, to be honest: I prefer “Star Trek” overall, and Q is my favorite character there. However, I actually think Discord is probably my favorite visual representation of a “God of Chaos” I’ve ever seen, and while I’m not a huge fan of the show he’s from, I’ve watched and enjoyed every single episode he appears in, just about. So, yeah…considering they’re played by the same person, and considering DeLancie’s experience with these two has actually led to him playing a few other somewhat similar characters over the years (such as Mephistopheles), I can’t think of a better option than to name both Discord and Q as My Favorite Spirits of Chaos. “What fun is there in making sense?” ;)

HONORABLE MENTIONS INCLUDE…

Havik, from Mortal Kombat. (Not sure if he really counts, which is why he’s not on the list.)

The Black Guardian, from Doctor Who.

Bezel, from Chikn Nuggit (Webtoons).

Azathoth, from the Cthulhu Mythos.

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s-talking · 10 months

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My favorite thing about your muse and your portrayal?

This is just gonna be a positivity ask, 'cause Envy's great, but you made him and are amazing, so you get some love too (as you deserve).

There is so much blood, sweat, and probably tears that went into Envy. I have interacted with you and your OC for years now, and he's still my absolute favorite. Top of the list for damn sure. The backstory, his personality, his weird little behaviors, his appearance – and I still have no idea what the fuck a Saebom is, and that horror aspect of the unknown is solid. I like that there's so much to him that's said in volumes where he doesn't speak much if at all. The quality of attention to what his actions are, his thoughts, and world around him is the only clues you get. What's not to love about a killer with unknown as a cloak, it's like another little layer of Saebom that's afflicted him, and he's just the surface level of that overarching 'what the fuck'. He is always a surprise even when you think you understand or so much as know him, the living curve-ball, and I'm here for that suspense. A literal jack-in-the-box with a knife.

I love what's been going on between our muses, and I'm here for every scenario big and small. I always get excited and check my Tumblr when I see "s-talking has posted XYZ", especially our IM's. I absolutely love those, I always look forward to them – and I know that you don't always respond, that maybe you forgot, or Tumblr was just being a toothpick in the dick and refused to show a notification. Regardless of the aforementioned, I will always have patience and excitement for your response. Be it several hours, days, or weeks. I know that such time management stuff is something that bothers you, but know that I do not mind. I could never mind at all. I'll still be here to support you, so take all the time you need for whatever might be going on. If you at all have a Discord, you are welcome to have my username, if you're comfortable.

And lets not forget your art of this lad. Absolute fucking talent, some good fucking food whenever I see your work. I have never not been inspired by your pieces, both old and new. I still have that one you did of Saku as the main display should someone go onto my blog and see the theme. I wish I could see your process, so I understand what all goes into such extraordinary pieces.

⌘ 𝐏𝐋𝐄𝐀𝐒𝐄 𝐓𝐄𝐋𝐋 𝐌𝐄 𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐅𝐀𝐕𝐎𝐑𝐈𝐓𝐄 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒 𝐀𝐁𝐎𝐔𝐓 𝐌𝐘 𝐏𝐎𝐑𝐓𝐑𝐀𝐘𝐀𝐋/𝐌𝐔𝐒𝐄?

truth to be told... i cannot even begin to count how many times i've re-written my reply to this ask. i've initially intended to write something wholesome & funny, something which will show my sincere gratitude for you & your kind words but, in the end, none of it ever felt really ' good ' enough. even now, as i type, i have this huge novella-sized post sitting in my drafts but i refuse to post it because i thought of something much better, something which will express me far more than mere words ever will, so here...

a big heart-felt thank you for always being here for me & not once treating me any different despite my many breaks or moments of pure silence. i've been going through a lot of heavy things these past two-three years, but knowing that i don't have to pressure myself into a plastic smile & constantly message / come online in general just to keep up good relations is a huge, huge relief, & you have no idea just how much it means to me. i sincerely cherish your patience, saku-mun, but also the many messages & asks that you've sent me ( whether i was online or offline, whether tumblr bugged out or i became distant by social means, ) but most of all, i thank you for all the kindness you've shown despite having your own troubles in life. i am flattered, & humbled, beyond words. also, the very fact you've even stashed my simple 10-15 minute doodle on your profile & kept it up for years is honestly the greatest form of flattery an artist could possibly receive from a friend. as such, it's only fair that you get a proper artwork of sakuyoru this time.

i adore you, simply. i adore your writing, your muse, your creativity & art, & just how much you've always cared for me & my own creations for so many years. this drawing is simply my own version of ardor... as well as sweet revenge for making my pale face burn hotter than the sun *chuckles *

either way, tdlr;; i hope you suffer with me now, you lil sh*t ♡

#aklgjalkg-- i got so emotional that i completely forgot to mention just how much i'm happy to see your love for envy & his horror tale #not to mention the plethora of compliments for my own writing #alkgalkgjagljk #thank you again #i'm by no means a proper writer - just someone who enjoys weaving stories & generally being creative #but even so #your ask makes me feel literally on top of the world.#{{ 𝓸𝓸𝓬;; }}

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raspberryranpo · 3 years

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announcing your engagement

fire emblem three houses: blue lions

i made a mistake and tapped post instead of save so i’ve had to start again 😭 this is in response to @angel6776 ‘s ask!! sorry!!

DIMITRI

dimitri probably wouldn’t even want to announce his engagement, only to one or two of his closest friends and then just send out invites to more people when you’ve both set a date for the wedding

but he’s the king of faerghus, and later fodlan, & the entire country deserves to know about the new monarch on the throne

all of your closest friends and family know beforehand, but the official announcement comes during a speech to the entire country, spoken from the balcony of the palace looking over the city

he’s talking about the new tax laws or something boring, and he then says something along the lines of, “my partner and i will…”

of course, the city takes notice of this and everyone gasps at the same time

dimitri then realises that not everyone knows about the two of you, and so he says, “it is with great pleasure that i announce my engagement to….”

and the city goes WILD. there’s parties everywhere. everyone celebrates yours and dimitri’s engagement, as well as the new realisation that the king has come out of his depression

DEDUE

the announcement & the wedding date is sent out on little cards to your closest friends and your family, decorated with little flowers and sparkles and whatever else goes on cards

each person who has received a letter has personally come to your shared home and has asked about whether the card is the truth or not

with a small blush and an even smaller smile, dedue nods and takes your hand, looking at you with a tender look in his eyes

dimitri was obviously the first person to know. in fact, dedue made sure that the two of you took the invitation to him personally

dimitri almost cries when he reads it, knowing that his friend has grown up and has realised that he’s not the big bad monster he made himself out to be

in fact, he’s so excited for his friend that he’s running around and telling everyone who’ll listen - not that dedue minds, of course, because he’s much too smitten with you to realise what’s actually happening

SYLVAIN

definitely the one to stand up in the middle of an important meeting and just scream it

it happens during one of the monthly meetings the nobles of fodlan have, during which they discuss (or rather argue over) all of the issues the newfound country has

they’re in the middle of discussing something like child poverty or something actually really sad when sylvain stands up & clears his throat, drawing all attention to himself

he has the biggest grin plastered on his face, and with all the satisfaction in the world, he just yells, “I’M GETTING MARRIED!”

you’ve got some like mercedes and dimitri, who quietly clap, genuinely happy for our resident ginger, but then you’ve got the ones like felix or ingrid, who promptly grab him by the ear and drag him down, yelling about how inappropriate that was

the look he gives you from across the table tells you that he doesn’t regret almost having his ears pulled out of his head

FELIX

brings it up quietly to annette, ingrid, ashe or mercedes, seeing as though they’re the only people whom he doesn’t feel would judge him, and they’re the only people he’d feel comfortable telling

the only way that sylvain and dimitri find out is through those four. they aren’t really formally told. felix does kind of hope that they find out, even though he refuses to outright tell them

he, mercedes and annette constantly talk about it - the girls because they love talking about weddings and decorations, felix because he secretly enjoys thinking about you dressed up in a wedding outfit

eventually, the entire monastery knows, simply because dimitri overheard annette taking about it, & he immediately yelled, “WHAT?! FELIX?! ENGAGED?!”

the poor lad would get incredibly flustered the second someone would bring it up with him but you can tell that he’s not embarrassed to be engaged to you

if anyone asks any questions about it, he won’t hesitate to blab on about it for three hours straight. they’ll be bombarded with him constantly singing your praises

ASHE

it’s like chinese whispers. he says it quietly to dedue, and dedue, not wanting to keep things from his king, tells dimitri, but dimitri doesn’t understand the concept of secrets and tells felix, felix laughs and tells ingrid, ingrid tells sylvain and sylvain tells the entire population

upon being asked about his engagement, ashe’s smile extends from one ear to the other, and he talks for a very long time about how pretty he thinks you’ll look & about how excited he is to actually be married to you

he decides to formally announce it because neither of you have actually said anything - the only way everyone knows is because of something someone else has said

he announces it at a formal dinner party the blue lions have every so often to meet up together. his chair scrapes the floor as he quickly stands up and the room goes silent

it’s very awkward, but he blurts it out with a smile on his face anyway. everyone is incredibly proud of the both of you

MERCEDES

the second you’re engaged, she runs to sing it from the rooftops. except she doesn’t sing, but she quite literally yells it from somewhere high up in the monastery

she’s full of laughter and immediately pulls you into her arms after she’s done, and doesn’t stop kissing you

omg imagine she yells it in the middle of the night & all you can hear is felix in the distance going “SHUT THE HELL UP”

everyone won’t stop talking about it the next day. turns out, everyone heard it, and mercedes is incredibly embarrassed for the entire day

her face is red and her left hand doesn’t leave her cheek, but her other hand stays on top of yours, every so often running her thumb over the ring on your finger

ANNETTE

imagine you propose to annette & she just screeches. it’s the most unholy screech you’ve ever heard and it gets everyone’s attention

that’s how it’s announced. annette makes the most primal scream ever heard to man & the entire monastery runs to her aid, wanting to know what’s going on

she slowly turns to the small crowd of people silently watching the two of you and very loudly says, “i’m engaged??????” and she sounds so unsure about it

everyone’s kind of unsure about whether or not you’re both engaged but after a long period of her being quiet, she starts laughing like a maniac, jumping up and down and crying about it

it’s all she talks about for the next year and a half. even after you’re both married she doesn’t shut up about you proposing

INGRID

tries to stay as quiet about it as possible before she tells all of her friends at once at one of the many blue lions reunions

she wraps an arm around your waist and everyone is shocked at the purely sunny look she has on her face

even her voice has a cheerful lilt to it as she happily announces, “we’re getting married!!”

everyone’s shocked at how genuinely happy she sounds since normally she’s quite serious, never really showing anything other than that

she immediately regrets acting like that because for the next few weeks it’s all everyone goes on about and she’s so humiliated

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sultryvodka · 3 years

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𝙘𝙤𝙡𝙡𝙚𝙜𝙚! 𝙖𝙤𝙩 𝙗𝙤𝙮𝙛𝙧𝙞𝙚𝙣𝙙 𝙝𝙚𝙖𝙙𝙘𝙖𝙣𝙤𝙣𝙨 | 𝙥𝙖𝙧𝙩 1

𝙥𝙪𝙗𝙡𝙞𝙨𝙝 𝙙𝙖𝙩𝙚 - 𝙢𝙖𝙮 4𝙩𝙝

warnings: mild swearing, mildly suggestive (if you squint lol)

| armin - colt - eren - jean - porco |

armin arlert

• i think most, if not all of us, agree that armin looks like the type to get all flustered with PDA & shy away from his emotions --- HOWEVER.

• rather than being all over you, he finds himself most comfortable with holding your hand or having an arm wrapped around your shoulders.

• he wouldn't mind you being clingy though 👀

• would occasionally place a gentle peck on your forehead, cheeks & his personal favorite; the palm of your hands.

• you guys' dates would mostly end up being in a library, café & restaurants with a nice warm atmosphere.

• i bet he would be the kind of guy to take you to the beach whenever you're stressed out in hopes of calming you down.

• gets very defensive when his friends tease you, if a man could bark his friends away, it's armin arlert.

• this lad over here would establish a routine with you (with your consent & opinions ofc)

• mondays to friday mornings are centered on school, you guys do your own thing at school & walk you home while making sure to stop by a convenience store for snacks, assuming that you guys don't live together yet.

• both of you make it a point to check on one another to make sure you guys aren't wearing yourselves out.

• which leads me to the conclusion that your parents grew very fond of him & treats him more like their child

• when you guys are having a sleepover, this whole lowkey facade of his takes a 180 and the second you reach the bedroom he'll shower you with cuddles and kisses.

• you would watch movies (mostly rom-com just bc armin makes it work okay) tucked in a warm futon with popcorn and candies between you two.

• armin strikes me as a very studious guy and he does this to ensure you guys' future together ^-^

• all in all armin cares about you so much and he doesn't mind being vulnerable to you. he is your safe haven, and so are you to him.

colt grice

• okay can we talk about how this perfect man deserves some more attention

• colt, my man, gives me disney's prince florian vibes. the soft-spoken, kind-hearted, & just an absolute dream.

• he's the kind of guy to take you to the park, a greenhouse, & WORKSHOPS!!!

• given the idea that he is in fact a shy little baby, he is actually pretty active with you. every date you guys have is different. mans has a quest planned out for y'all.

• at school i think that you might be the one to initiate skinship. doesn't have to be kisses on the lips, it's more of gently trailing your index on the back of his hand or rubbing a hand on his forearm when he gets a little anxious.

• the type to peek through your classroom's door because bubba's too shy to ask someone to call for you 🤧

• colt, in my opinion, is very domestic in private, now don't get me wrong he may be a little too shy in public because he isn't used to it but i promise you he takes on the nurturing role of the relationship more than you are.

• he helps you with cleaning, folding your clothes, and god if you guys get periods, he's got a whole pouch in his locker just for you.

• he doesn't do it intentionally, he happens to know you so well that he notices the slight change in your moods & cravings.

• colt often reads a book while you guys cuddle during the afternoons once all the work is done, he'd make you tea or whatever you want. he hums a tune, probably from old disney movies that his brother falco used to enjoy as a kid.

• your parents are more invested in your marriage than you and colt combined.

• okay, now if you happen to have a baby or a toddler somewhere around the house, someone keep this man from turning into a putty.

• as much as colt acts prim and proper most of the time, he has his moments where he just wants to be an entire mess. perhaps sleeping past his usual waking time, indulging in more snacks than usual. you know, loosen up? yeah, that is a side of his that only YOU will ever be allowed to see.

• so yes you and colt would be labeled as the: put-together couple who needs a little bit of adventure every now and then.

eren jaeger

• i hope i don't ramble too long because i love him sm

• mr. loverboy over here is a simp for you, more than you are a simp for him! he is not afraid to show you off and shower you with flattery. now he does this because he feels so lucky to have you.

• he can be a little cliché (well maybe not as much as jean --- more on that later), like he'll randomly interrupt your vacant class with a gift box he put together, & a bouquet. yes. (carla helped him pick out flowers from her shop)

• he's the type to crash his lips with yours in the middle of campus when you achieve something or when he does, vice-versa. if he plays in one of your school's teams, there just HAS to be a bet that if he wins he gets a kiss... or more... or something else.

• dates with eren are usually random than planned. like it pops in his head and he'll inform you right away. he respects your vacancy too of course but if you aren't he might pout just a little bit.

• his ideal dates are prop shop dates, going to hotspots, amusement parks, antique shops! & maybe late night drinks at a quiet bar where you can both enjoy the solace of the atmosphere.

• on special occasions, he does plan ahead. usually it's something on the simpler side. candlelit dinners at home or somewhere you guys both enjoy dining.

• if eren's had a bad day, best believe that he will run to you for comfort. only you can help keep his aggressive response to anger at bay.

• if given the chance he would take you around the world, he's that passionate in making sure you live a little

• hear me out... you and eren would probably have the most philosophical conversations, just laying on your backs beneath his room's skylight? heavenly.

• eren can get a little poetic expressing himself & i believe that it's just wonderful. no one can describe their feelings as good as eren.

• his favorite look of yours is when your eyes beam with excitement, it usually happens when you spot something that you used to enjoy as a kid or when you're concentrating on one of your hobbies.

• he's a very touchy person too, his hands are usually on your stomach/waist, his kisses are random & they linger for awhile.

• when you're asleep next to him, it's his habit to solemnly watch you while his own drowsiness starts to take over.

• eren is passionate & sometimes people might take it the wrong way. one of the reasons eren loves you is because of the way you understand how he is. mutual growth for y'all ♡.

jean kirschtein

• jean is not afraid to pull a live performance for you, you see this man is at the top of the world when he's with you. from 80s hits to recent releases this man will blast his playlists catered for you.

• dates with jean are certainly spent on concerts, (him & eren bond over chase atlantic don't argue with me) music festivals, thrifting & late night drives!!!

• personally, i don't see jean as very gimmicky unless you guys are with his friends, he takes you very seriously and you are his top priority.

• at school i think he's definitely one of those flirtatious boyfriends. the kind who would not miss an opportunity to blow you a kiss or throw you a wink. he can be a bit of a dork, who wouldn't be? if he can get one of your rare smiles 🥺

• jean's the type to ask his pals for help when it comes to styling. not because he dresses badly but he's too focused on getting a flush on your cheeks. he's a hopeless romantic.

• if you guys happen to stay at home, he'll definitely serenade you with the amount of songs he had written recently just for you.

• since he bonds with sasha and connie, his jokes are either dad jokes or something that went viral on tiktok. he's the perfect balance of goofy and mature.

• if you aren't much of an active person he wouldn't mind being lazy with you and insist on a diy spa day at home.

• it's just netflix with a tub of ice cream and face masks on.

• since jean is quite the romantic, he would be into couple outfits or items that aren't cringey obv and probably doesn't mind using your perfume or vice-versa.

• jean probably asked you out during one of his gigs, offering you a single rose afterwards.

• he's the type to leave you random post-it notes if he visits your house. just random phrases or doodles. and boy does he pick you up every single day on his smexy motorcycle.

• he'll bring you coffee and breakfast to-go. this man's spoiling you baby.

• aside from that, i feel like jean would make you hand-made gifts with the help of his momma. he thinks it's sentimental when you make your presents because it's one of a kind.

• jean does all these things because he's 100% about you being a constant person in his life. he loves how he can be whoever he wants when he's around you, i'm certain you guys wouldn't have it any other way either.

porco galliard

• porco can be a dick if he wants to not to you though, this tough guy turns into putty just for you. he definitely loves being treated like a baby.

• at first he might come off as cold because he isn't used to the whole romance thing and he gets flustered with the slightest pecks so you might have to initiate at first.

• but once you guys get through the awkward phase this boy would straight up greet you with a passionate kiss and does not give a damn about everybody who witnessed it. he might even have a stupid smirk on his face.

• like eren, i feel like porco would be very passionate and intense. he doesn't say much but he definitely shows you just how much he adores you.

• speaking of friends (: reiner would tease him every second of the day. i bet he would team up with bertholdt to annoy this poor boy. annie and pieck's not much help either.

•whenever you're stressed, porco would run you a bath and give you massages very often. he'll sit on the edge of the tub while he runs his hand through your hair.

•his type of dates would be watching at a cinema or a drive-in, going to the mall just to look around,he's a simple guy.

•if you guys happen to have an argument, porco would distance himself for a few minutes to a few hours just to process the situation and avoid anything his aggression might cause.

•he knew that if he wanted you guys to work he needed to be better.

•he would come back though and hold you in his arms while you guys talk it out.

•i bet he's one of the aot characters who would be an athlete, so most days you'll end up watching him practice.

•overtime, porco would be more open to being intimate in public and post stories of you two just doing things most couples do.

•he's proud that you're his and he's all yours.

•porco is a great guy and he would do anything just to make you smile.

i hope you guys liked these~! let me know who you guys want to be in the second part. requests are open and as always, stay safe! - 🌸☁️

#aot headcanons #aot x you #armin headcanons #armin arlert fluff #colt headcanons #colt grice fluff #eren headcanons #eren jaeger fluff #jean headcanons #jean kirschtein fluff #porco headcanons #porco galliard fluff #🌸☁️ works

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thanksjro · 3 years

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Bayverse: Treating These Movies with More Dignity than They Deserve or Contain, Because I’m a Goddamned Professional - Part One

TRANSFORMERS (2007) - UNCOMFORTABLE SEXUAL TENSION BETWEEN TEENAGERS THAT I DIDN’T NEED TO SEE

So.

This is a little different than what I usually do.

Clearly.

God, how did we even get here?

Oh, I remember.

The date was September 17th, 2020, and I was in a stream with nine or ten other people watching the first Bayverse Transformers movie. Why we were watching it doesn’t particularly matter- sometimes you just gotta watch garbage so you can refresh your palate for the good stuff, I suppose. Also, a couple of folks wanted to make goo-goo eyes at Blackout’s rotors.

...It’s not my thing, but I’m glad they’ve got something to make the journey worth taking.

I made some sort of comment about only using my brain for this blog’s content, and someone (you know who you are :)) suggested that I take a proper look at the film. Being who I am, I immediately latched onto this idea, despite it being technically outside of what I write about.

And then I quintuple-downed, because winners don’t quit.

Good to know that my BA in Film Production wasn’t a complete waste of time.

Fun fact, I broke my television trying to watch Transformers for this. I think the universe was trying to stop me, by making me perform surgery on electronics, and also aggravating my carpal tunnel.

This movie came out when I was 13, and it was the first Transformers thing I saw after Cybertron. Yes, the anime one. No, not the one that’s objectively terrible.

Anyway.

How did I feel about Transformers when I saw it the first time? Well… it was okay. I liked the robots. I thought Mikaela was pretty, not that I knew what that meant back then. I watched it a few times, if only because my oldest younger brother kept renting it at Blockbuster. It was fun.

Now I’m older, and wiser, and know feminist theory, so my opinion is less “this exists” and more “blind, murderous rage”.

Our film opens up with some claptrap about the Cube™, a MacGuffin of ultimate power that allows the Transformers to create worlds in their image and populate them. Which means this is how they reproduce.

It always comes back to baby-making, doesn’t it?

The narration goes on about how the Cube™ is very powerful, and some folks wanted it for good, and others for evil. The criteria for being “good” and “evil” isn’t established, and I’m not exactly sure how one would define such a thing, when all the Cube™ does is create life, but, well, we’ve only just begun. Maybe we’ll get some answers later on.

Haha, I doubt it.

So, the Cube™ is the catalyst for our 4 million year war this continuity, and that sucker was lost in the shuffle a while back. This is a problem, because, again, the Cube™ is how the Transformers reproduce. Now everyone’s in a mad scramble to find the thing so their species doesn’t die out.

Three guesses as to where it ended up, and the first two don’t count.

Smashcut to the shit nobody cares about- the humans. We see an Osprey fly over the Qatar desert, carrying a buttload of American soldiers. We get a taste of some good old-fashioned xenophobia, as several soldiers mock a guy for not speaking English and loving his mother’s cooking, going full “funny haha gibberish language” on him. We’re two and a half minutes into the film, and I already want to stab something.

Ed Sheeran breaks into the conversation, I guess because he was feeling left out, revealing that he is the New Yorker stereotype of the film, for some reason. The fellas ask their captain, Lennox, what he’s looking forward to most about getting home from their tour, and he reveals himself to be a family man. While he’s been away, his wife had a baby, who he hasn’t so much as held yet. His men respond by mocking him.

For loving his child.

We’re three minutes into the film, and the toxic masculinity might actually make me have an aneurysm.

The Ospreys land, the lads disembark, and we get a snapshot of what downtime during deployment looks like to Bay. There are a lot of kiddie swimming pools involved. Two men play basketball. We watch multiple men take outdoor showers. A young Qatari boy brings Lennox a camelback water pack with a smile on his face. This lets me know that he’s a prop and not a character in this film. I can’t wait to see how many horrors he’ll be put through to simulate pathos.

We get a shot of a helicopter flying over the desert, one that the US military doesn’t recognize as their own. They send a couple of planes to check it out, and said planes get their shop wrecked. The helicopter is revealed to be the same ‘copter that was shot down several months prior. That’s… not good. Ghost helicopter?

No. Not at all, actually.

Lennox gets on a video chat with his wife and daughter, who is wearing one of the most ridiculous baby outfits I’ve seen in a hot minute. And I used to work in childcare, so I’ve seen a good amount of those. The writing implies that normal bodily functions are unladylike and therefore undesirable… in an infant… and that’s when all hell breaks loose, thankfully saving me from more of Bay trying to make me give a shit about these characters.

The helicopter lands, we get a shot of the mustachioed pilot, who glitches (gasp), and the line “have your crew step out or we will kill you” is uttered. Not even trying to hide the nationalism, are you?

This film hit theaters in 2007, when the xenophobia from 9/11 was still heavy in the air of the general populace, so things like this were more tolerated, and in fact approved of. Of course, it’s not like America has really improved on that subject, or ever really had a point where we weren’t terrible about it, since we live in a world where the military-entertainment complex exists.

See, the Department of Defense and a good chunk of American entertainment industries have a little deal going, and have for the last few decades, and it goes like this: The DoD will allow the use of their vehicles, personnel, and bases, or the likenesses of such, for free, in exchange for their operations being shown in a positive/morally justified light. This is why you never see the armed forces portrayed in a way that makes them out as anything less than heroes- nobody would be able to afford the sets/likenesses without the DoD’s aid. This is also why you see straight-up advertisements for the military branches on televison, in cinemas, and online, and why both the Army and Navy have flirted with having Twitch channels.

It’s all a ploy to get you to join the military, kids. It’s propaganda.

But enough about that, it’s time for our first transformation sequence!

We get a lot of moving parts with this, since it’s realistic CGI in a live-action movie, and it still holds up. It’s hard to tell what’s actually happening, but it, if nothing else, feels alien, surreal, and horrific to behold. They even included the original sound effect in the cacophony, which is nice.

Our ghost helicopter reveals itself to be a Transformer, not that we get that terminology at any point in this film. This specifically is Blackout, a Decepticon. The soldiers start firing on him the moment he starts transforming, then are surprised when the thing they started shooting with several guns retaliates. This is the point where everything ever in this military base explodes, brilliantly and repeatedly, because it wouldn’t be a Bay film without it. There’s a lot of shouting and bright lights, and I’m positively certain that a great deal of people died during this fight.

It’s just a shame that I don’t care.

Blackout rips the top off of a building like it’s a tin of anchovies, and then snags all the hard drives he can, downloading everything. This is a problem, but it seems like nobody was prepared for a giant alien robot hack-attack, because in order to shut down the power to the servers, you need to be able to unlock the breaker box, and no one seems to have the key. They solve the problem with a fire ax.

Lennox is leading the Qatari boy through the base towards safety. I should mention that it’s night now, and several hours seem to have passed since the Ospreys landed, so I don’t know why this kid is still here. He’s got, like, a house and family to go home to.

We get some more tank-throwing action, Sergeant Epps almost gets flattened under Blackout’s foot, then the movie decides it’s going to try to make things more interesting by having each shot cut flash, for whatever reason.

Someone shoots Blackout with a rocket launcher, I think, and this is the point where he throws his tiny little man off his back to go do his job. Yes, Blackout’s got a baby, and that baby is Scorponok, his symbiotic pal who likes to dig into the ground and be a sneaky little bastard.

Blackout blows up a ton more military equipment and personnel, and then it’s time for another smashcut.

Now we’re in high school, just like all those dreams I’ve had where I’ve forgotten my homework. This is where we meet Sam Witwicky, our main character, and also the stand-in for our target demographic. He’s insufferable, and I don’t like him. Mikaela Banes, our love interest, is also present in this scene, but we don’t get to know about her character for, like, another 20 minutes, because who gives a shit about women, right? They’re just props, right?

Right???

RIGHT??????????

RIGH-

Sam is presenting on his great-great-grandfather, Archibald Witwicky, for his family genealogy report, in front of a class containing maybe three actors who are age appropriate.

I know child labor laws are a good thing, and that hiring adults to play teenagers is just the lay of the land, but I swear some of these students look like they’re old enough to be on their second mortgage and third kid.

Anyway.

Archibald Witwicky was an explorer, one of the first to traverse the Arctic circle, and apparently his crew was made up of folks from 2007, because I swear the clothing for a few of these dudes isn’t period-appropriate. We get a seamen joke, because of course we do, and a sextant joke, because of course we do. Sam is also hawking all this crap he’s brought in for the presentation, because he is a little bastard who has no idea what his peers would want to buy, or really how to relate to them at all. He’s selling these “priceless” artifacts so he can get a car. Mikaela finds this charming, for some fucking reason. Also, her boyfriend is weirdly stroking her shoulder blade with his knuckles the whole time this is happening, and I hate it.

Archibald Witwicky went mad after his expedition, talking about an “ice man” so often that his family ended up locking him in a mental asylum, likely to be forgotten about. Which is sad. But we won’t be getting into the medical mistreatment of the mentally ill in Bayverse, now will we? That’s just Too Deep™.

Sam’s teacher didn’t very much appreciate having his class be turned into an episode of Antiques Roadshow, but still gives Sam an “A” on the project, despite it being a very poor report that lasted all of two minutes. I suspect the teacher has tenure, and therefore no longer gives a shit about academic integrity. This “A” means that Sam’s father will buy him a car.

Which is nice, I suppose, if I gave a damn.

Sam’s father, Ron, picks up his son in a car he probably bought at the crux of his midlife crisis, in a green that reminds me of a school gymnasium floor, then plays a prank on his child by pretending to pull into the Porsche dealership. Sam isn’t getting a Porsche, which is good, because he doesn’t deserve one. As Sam gripes to his father, a yellow Camaro drives by oh so conspicuously. Wonder what’s up with that.

Instead of the Porshe dealership, they head over to the used car lot, which is being run by Bobby Bolivia, who spends his time yelling at his employees and wanting to murder his mother. Sam is incredibly ungrateful about the fact that his dad is helping him get a car, even though it’s his FIRST car, and nobody gets a nice one the first go around. Or, at least, they shouldn’t, given the statistics about accidents with young drivers.

“No sacrifice, no victory” is uttered by Ron, which is the family motto, or so he claims. Archibald Witwicky said the same thing when he had multiple people dying trying to get to the Arctic Circle, so there’s precedence for the phrase, but we’ll see how it holds up throughout the film.

Bobby Bolivia shows Sam and Ron the cars he has for sale, and Sam is immediately drawn to the yellow Camaro in the lot, though there’s a small problem- it’s too expensive for what he and his father agreed to. Also, nobody knows where the hell it came from, so paperwork might be an issue. When Bobby tries to show Sam the yellow Beetle they have right down the line, everything explodes, because this is a Bay film, and fuck the original material this movie was based on. Bobby lets them have the Camaro for a lower price, suddenly fearful of whatever strange powers have just visited his place of business. “The car picks the driver” is suddenly more than a bullshit line to spout off in order to sell cars, and I’m certain that’s shaken the poor man.

Over in Washington, D.C., the Secretary of Defense prepares to address just what the hell happened in Qatar, lamenting on how young the audience he’s going to be speaking to is. In particular, he’s referring to the two dweebs and the hot chick sitting in one of the rows. All the women in this movie who aren’t someone’s mom are made up to be very pretty. And not even in a realistic way. But we’ll get to that in a bit.

So, the military network was hacked. That’s bad. Nobody knows who did it. That’s also bad. The only lead the US has is a soundbite, which is the signal that hacked the network.

Everyone here at the briefing is going to be helping to figure this mess out. This is great, if you like looking at Rachael Taylor for a few seconds at a time, and can compartmentalize hard enough to make that worth the effort of watching this godforsaken film.

Back at the Witwicky household, we meet Mojo, a chihuahua with a cast that doesn’t seem like it’s actually doing anything. I wish he was the main character instead of Sam.

Sam arrives home from the dealership, and says “alright, Mojo, I’ve got the car. Now I need the girl.”

As if ownership of a person is something to aspire to.

As if women are property to be owned.

As if women aren’t people, but rather commodities.

We’re 17.5 minutes into this film.

We’re introduced to Judy, Sam’s mother. She’s shrill, and annoying. This is by design, because none of the women in this film are actually people, but rather archetypes to bounce off of the male characters.

Sam and his father have a moment of what some might consider banter, then Sam gets huffy with his mom over gender roles for the dog. I, for one, think Mojo looks positively dashing in his bedazzled collar, and to hell with whatever Sam says to the contrary.

Sam drives off to go be a misogynist, with the promise to be back by 11PM.

Over in Qatar, the soldiers and that little boy are running from the attack on their base, as Lennox’s wife watches a public announcement on the matter back at home. The Secretary of Defense lets us know that we’re at DEFCON Delta at this point. Lennox Jr. cries, and all I can think about is how they probably pinched that baby to make that happen. They pinched a baby for Transformers (2007).

The soldiers in Qatar talk about shit they have no idea about, Sergeant Epps going on about somehow having been able to see a forcefield around Blackout through his super special binoculars. I don’t know how, or why, he knows this. I don’t know anything anymore.

Ed Sheeran has his doubts about this whole thing, and Lennox is also present in the scene, because I guess he’s important. Through a bit of dramatic irony, Fig- the guy everyone was making fun of for being bilingual at the start of the film- says that this probably isn’t over, as the shape of Scorponok shifts through the sand just beyond them.

Epps is having a minor crisis over the fact that Blackout saw him, but we don’t have time for that, because we’ve got to get to cover. The lads decide to head to the little Qatari boy’s house. Again, I wonder why he was at the base at all, considering that it seems like they’ve been traveling for a good portion of the day.

Back with Sam, he’s picked up his friend Miles, and together they’re going to a lake party. Are they invited to this party? Yes, but also no. It’s public property though, so it should be fine. As they park, Sam notices that Mikaela is here, which is great for him.

Mikaela’s boyfriend, Trent- whose name I had to look up- is a massive tool, and starts pestering the two boys for daring to exist in his airspace. Miles climbs a tree. I’m glad he’s having fun, at least. Sam makes a joke at the expense of people with brain injuries, and this for some reason? Warrants a shot of Mikaela making the blank “pretty girl” face? In response?

Mikaela saves Sam from becoming a wet stain on the grass, which is very kind of her, and more than Sam really deserves. Trent, his boys, and Mikaela start to head off for another party, to get away from Sam and his tree-loving friend. Mikaela offers to drive, and Trent says that she can’t handle his truck, because she’s a ~girl~. This causes Mikaela to ditch him, and start walking home.

The script knows enough about misogyny to know that this would be a nice “take that”. Michael Bay, however, likely fails to see why everything he did with said script involving this character is a goddamned problem.

Because Mikaela, bless her heart, has a lot of problems.

Let’s start with the outfit: a croptop, a jean skirt that BARELY covers her ass, and a pair of wedge heels that are at least four inches tall. On a character that is, at oldest, freshly 18.

Look, I’m all about self-expression and the freedom to choose how you dress for yourself and yourself alone, but this clearly isn’t that. This is a character, not a person, whose wardrobe was designed for the straight male gaze. She’s wearing fucking STRAP HEELS to the lake. This is about oogling. This is about reducing a whole-ass person to the same status as a piece of meat. In fact, who was on wardrobe for this? I’d like to have a few words with-

A woman? Okay, well, what else has she worked on?

You can’t be fucking serious.

ANYWAY.

Miles just called Mikaela an “evil jock concubine.” I don’t like Miles anymore.

As Mikaela walks down the road, strutting hard enough that I’ve got sympathy pains in my hips, the radio in the Camaro turns on, playing “Drive” by the Cars, and giving Sam a hell of an idea; he’s gonna drive Mikaela home, so she doesn’t have to walk the 10 miles to her house. Why he knows how far she lives from the lake isn’t addressed.

Sam kicks Miles out of the car and goes to give Mikaela a ride, which she accepts after a bit of self-deliberation, and also him making an ass of himself. The shot here is framed with Sam like he’s a normal-ass person, and Mikaela from her breasts to the top of her waist. Because of COURSE it is.

She hops in the car and then goes off about her taste in hot guys. Which is weird, and out of left field. Sam is about as confused as I am, then continues to make a fool of himself. This is his nature as a person. Mikaela has no idea who Sam is, even though they’ve gone to the same school for the last 10 years and have multiple classes together. And the fact that she was staring him down all through his genealogy presentation. And at the lake.

This movie isn’t very well thought out, I feel.

It’s at this point the the Camaro turns the key on itself and starts to sputter out and die, as “Sexual Healing” by Marvin Gaye pops on the radio.

I don’t like how this car is trying to get Sam laid.

I don’t like how this car is trying to get Sam laid with a girl who didn’t even know his name five minutes ago.

I don’t like how this car knows what sex is.

The Camaro breaks down on a cliff, and Mikaela hops out to work on the engine, and also to get the hell away from Sam’s sputtering.

As Mikaela admires the sweet engine in this Camaro, showing off her knowledge of cars, we get several shots of her from her breasts to her thighs, while Sam is treated like an actual person. Don’t bother trying to play it off as an artistic choice, Bay, this is blatant horndogging. This adds to NOTHING, other than my ire.

Sam says more stupid shit, and Mikaela, who must be the nicest fucking person in the world, just tells him to fire up the engine so she can try to sort out the problem. Then he asks why she goes for jackasses like Trent, and she decides that she’s hit her limit for today, opting to walk the rest of the way home. Good on you, Mikaela. Don’t take Sam’s bullshit.

Sam, realizing that he’s put his foot in his mouth for the 80th time today, pleads with his Camaro to do him a solid and work, and this actually works out for him. Great. Sam, victorious, once again offers Mikaela a ride, which she, once again, takes.

He drops her off without further incident, and she thanks him for listening. Even though they didn’t really talk that much. I dunno, maybe they had a super deep conversation offscreen. Mikaela asks Sam if he thinks she’s shallow, because clearly all women need approval from the men around them, and Sam says that there’s more to her than meets the eye.

Which made me groan aloud.

Anyway, she gets inside without a problem, and Sam professes his love for his new Camaro for allowing him to talk to a girl. Or at least talk at her.

Back in Washington, D.C., at the Pentagon National Military Command Center, we’re making weirdly racist calls on who hacked the military.

Up with Air Force One, a conspicuous boombox transforms into a robot, and then runs off to hack shit. The President of the United States requests some snack cakes. A flight attendant goes down to storage to retrieve said snack cakes, and finds that boombox in the elevator with her. Considering this is Air Force One, you’d perhaps expect her to immediately be suspicious of such a thing, but this is Bayverse, and we don’t think here.

The flight attendant brings the boombox down with her and places it on the counter as she goes to get the presidential snack cakes. The boombox immediately disappears. Now, you’d perhaps expect her to immediately be suspicious of such a thing, but this is Bayverse-

The flight attendant opens up the snack cake package, for some reason, and drops the cake on the floor. She then proceeds to eat it, and then act shocked when it tastes like floor. There’s a robot in her fucking line of sight, and you’d perhaps expect her to immediately be suspicious of such a thing-

She leaves to go feed the President floor cakes, and our little robot friend gets to work stealing government secrets. He, if nothing else, looks pretty cool doing it. He’s a very pointy lad.

Back at the Pentagon, Maddie- Rachael Taylor’s character- can hear the hacking. This sends everyone into a panic, because, well, that shouldn’t be happening. The hacking noise is a direct match to the one from Qatar, so that’s obviously a problem.

Back on Air Force One, our little robot friend is looking for “Project Iceman”, which he very quickly finds, and downloads everything they’ve got on it, and also plants a virus. The process seems to be… doing things to him. It’s weird. This movie is weird.

The Pentagon cuts all the system hardlines, stopping the process, but it’s too late- he got what he wanted, just about. Two security personnel come into the room, and the robot kills them both with some spinning blade disc nonsense. Air Force One is forced to land for the safety of everyone on-board. More security detail comes in to deal with the little bastard, but he transforms into a boombox and sits on a shelf to avoid suspicion. Now, you’d perhaps expect-

With the plane grounded, our robot is able to walk his little ass over to a cop car. And when I say walk, I do mean walk; this fucker is in multiple folks’ line of sight and nobody notices a thing. When he enters the car, he’s greeted by the mustachioed driver- the same driver who was operating the helicopter at the beginning of the film. This mustache man is a holographic avatar, one that’s being used by all the Decepticons.

We get our first real taste of Cybertronian language, as our robot- it’s Frenzy, his name is Frenzy- lets everyone know that he’s found a clue to the location of the AllSpark, and, through the power of the internet, knows where to find the guy who’s gonna give them what they need.

Three guesses to who it is, and the first two don’t count.

Back at the Witwicky household, Sam’s car does a runner in the middle of the night. Sam, horrified that his property is being stolen, pursues on a bike, screaming at his dad to call the cops. Sam also calls the cops, as he tears through the neighborhood.

The Camaro breaks into an abandoned building, Sam follows, and we finally get a shot of our audience appeal character. Sam watches in disbelief as a giant yellow space robot shines a beacon into the sky, then makes a video on his flip phone recording the experience. He apologizes to his parents for owning pornographic magazines, and goes to face his probable demise.

However, death does not come from above, instead manifesting itself as two of the strongest junkyard dogs in the known universe, who break their brick-inlaid chains to get at this little dip of a man. Sam is chased through the yard, climbing on top of a couple precarious oil drums, even though there’s a ladder, like, right there. The Camaro rolls in, scaring off the dogs, and Sam bolts, throwing the keys to his ride at his ride. When he gets outside, the cops have arrived, and immediately arrest him.

Back with the US government, the Secretary of State is having a conversation about all the bullshit that just went down with Air Force One. He and his fellow cishet old white men discuss their options, until Maddie comes in to set them straight on some of the facts. They act all indignant about it, because women can’t be smart, right?

Right???

RIGHT??????????

RIGH-

Anyway, we get a weird little deflection of Maddie’s role in everything, because a woman is nothing without the men around her, then she brings up the point that the bullshit that happened on Air Force One went down in just a few seconds, which isn’t something that anyone can actually do. She brings up quantum mechanics, which everyone blows off as nonsense- not that I wouldn’t as well- and theorizes on a DNA-based computer, which is technically a thing, if not trapped in the realm of speculation. It’s at this point that the Secretary of Defense tells her to come back when she can back these wild claims up, and isn’t just clearly spitballing.

And then he snaps his fingers at her, and any point he might have had leaves my brain so I have more room for being enraged.

Back with Sam, we’re at the police station talking to the cops. His dad is here, and Sam is trying to explain that his car is a dude. Even though he took at a video (one that was likely crap, given how quickly he spun his phone around to show off what he was seeing) the cops, understandably, don’t believe him. Then one of them, not so understandably, starts… threatening Sam? With his sidearm? And daring him to try something? This isn’t any sort of statement on the corruption of American law enforcement, it’s just bizarre.

Back in Qatar, our soldier buddies have found a telephone line, and are going to try to use it to get in contact with the rest of the world. It’s just too bad that Scorponok’s decided to make an entrance, and knock said telephone line the hell down. Ed Sheeran has next to no reaction to this, despite it happening maybe ten feet behind him. Fig speaks Spanish, and Ed Sheeran makes a point to be an asshole about it.

Scorponok is about to stab Lennox with his very pointy tail, when Epps notices- finally, someone with peripheral vision- and starts shooting. Then everyone starts shooting, kicking up enough sand to blind themselves, as Scorponok scuttles away, buries himself, then reappears behind Ed Sheeran.

Ed Sheeran does not survive this experience.

The others bolt, not wanting the same to happen to them, and for the fourth time I wonder just why the hell this young boy was at the base in the first place.

Off in the distance, the community of a nearby town wonders just what the shit is going on out in the desert. Our soldiers run into the town, and everyone gets their guns and start firing on Scorponok, who retaliates, because why the hell wouldn’t he?

Lennox demands that the young boy take him to his father, and proceeds to borrow his phone. As shit goes down outside, we have a sort-of gag where Lennox is trying to contact the Pentagon, while a telemarketer tries to get him to buy a phone package. In order for this call to go through, he’s going to need a credit card. This is where the well-known “pocket” scene comes from, as Lennox searches Epps’ pants for his wallet as he fires on Scorponok. It’s probably the best-written thing in this whole film.

With the credit card acquired, Lennox finally gets through to the Pentagon, and tosses Epps the phone so he can talk. Maybe he’s got anxiety about speaking on the phone, I dunno.

Scorponok shows off his disregard for historical architecture, blowing up several buildings, and the US government just watches this all go down. One of the actors in this scene looks like my dad, and it trips me up every time he’s on screen. Anyway, now the Pentagon knows about the giant space robots running around in Qatar. They send over some air support about it. All this manages to do is piss Scorponok off.

So they try it again.

This time it works, sort of.

At the very least, he’s left now.

Tail fell off, though.

Also, Fig’s been grievously wounded. The others, for once, don’t make fun of his native language while they help him hold his blood inside his body.

Back at the Pentagon, Maddie’s looking to prove that the bullshit that’s been going on is of the sci-fi variety, and in order to do that, she’s going to need a little outside help. She takes the information from the Pentagon, slaps it into an SD card, hides that shit in her blush compact, and then runs out the door to Glenn Whitmann’s house. Or, rather, his grandma’s house.

Glenn is a hacker, and shouldn’t be seeing anything that Maddie’s brought him, but everyone knows that confidentiality is for nerds, so whatever.

Back at the Pentagon, Maddie’s immediately been caught. It’s almost like slapping the military network onto an SD card maybe wasn’t such a hot idea. But what do I know?

Glenn takes a look at the soundbite and figures out that there’s a code embedded in the thing in about two seconds. Good to know our tax dollars are being well-spent on the US military, that some dude in his jammies can figure this shit out faster than a whole team of analysts. They figure out that “Project Iceman” is involved with this somehow, and also the existence of Sector Seven. It’s at this point that the FBI busts in. Good. I kind of want Maddie to go to jail for this, because she was about as stupid as she could be handling the situation.

Glenn’s cousin goes through a closed glass door- don’t worry, it’s tempered- and there’s a weird cut before that exact same shot continues, and he’s tackled into the pool. There was no reason for that to have happened, but here we are.

Back with Sam, we’re treated to him in his boxers, shooting basketballs in his room. He goes into the kitchen, where Mojo is standing on a stool. It’s a very tall stool, the sort you sit on, and he’s just… there. I don’t know how he got there. There’s no one else in the room besides Sam, and I know he didn’t put him there.

Clearly this must mean Mojo is God, and being on that stool is his divine will. I will be approaching the rest of the franchise with this in mind, because it’s clearly the only answer.

Our merciful Lord Mojo jumps up on the kitchen counter and begins growling at something through the window. Sam looks out… the opposite window… to find that his Camaro has returned to him, and is less than thrilled about it, to put it lightly. He drops a jug of milk- luckily it was mostly empty, given the sound it makes when it hits the floor- and gives his buddy Miles a call. You remember Miles, don’t you? If you don’t, it’s fine, because he reestablishes his quirkiness with a single shot, as he sits in a swimsuit and bathes his huge-ass dog in a kiddie pool, and answers the phone with a headset he just happened to be wearing. He must get a lot of calls during Dog Washing Hours. 

After giving us one of the most intense voice cracks I’ve ever heard, Sam books it out of his house, hopping on a bike to escape his murderous Camaro. He’s not seen the thing commit any murders, mind you, but he seems pretty convinced that it would do the job, given half a chance. Also, this isn’t the bike he rode the night before; that one is likely being chewed on by those strong-ass junkyard dogs. No, for some reason, the Witwickys have a pastel pink girl’s bike, with the fun little handle tassels and the basket and everything. As far as I can tell, Sam is an only child, and if you think Bay’s going to allow for a teenage boy to have the vulnerability to own a pink bike, you’ve not been paying attention for the last 48.5 minutes.

The Camaro gives chase, rolling after Sam on his bike at a brisk 7 MPH down the friggin’ sidewalk, one of the only scenes in this travesty of a film to actually get me to crack a smile. Sam races through town until city planning puts a stop to him, through the magic of using chunks of cement to decorate the mulch around their trees. He crashes his bike, faceplants into the concrete in front of Mikaela, and promptly dies, thus ending the film.

No, he doesn’t die. I just told a fib. I’m sorry.

Instead, he does a flip and lands on his back, likely receiving a concussion, in front of Mikaela and her friends. Her friends laugh, because everyone hates Sam, as they should, and Mikaela says that what he just did was “really awesome.” Don’t try to be nice, Mikaela, this is Sam we’re talking about; you could stick the dude in the freezer overnight and he still wouldn’t be even remotely cool.

Sam gets back to the whole “running away from a car” deal, and Mikaela decides that this is the sort of thing she’d like to do with her day, so she ditches her friends in the middle of their scheduled Burger King™ time to go see what the hell Sam’s on about.

As Sam is chased by the Camaro who is being chased by Mikaela on her motorized scooter, a cop becomes involved, tearing through the streets to join this ridiculous game of tag. Now, we’ve seen two different flavor of cop so far- the mustachioed avatar cop car that picked up Frenzy from the airport, and the dude who threatened a teenage boy with a gun after accusing him of being under the influence of drugs. Either way, I don’t think this is going to turn out well for Sam.

Sam’s cornered himself under one of those really wide bridges where people can park their cars, which wasn’t terribly smart, but it’s Sam, so this is about par for the course. The Camaro manages to miss him, but the cop car does not. Sam is actually pretty cool with the cops being here, as if they could do anything about “Satan’s Camaro.” I guess he didn’t see the decal on the side of this car that says “to punish and enslave…”

Sam attempts to approach the car for help, and gets clotheslined by a car door for his troubles. He hits his head on the pavement, certainly exasperating the brain injury he received not ten minutes ago. Still, he continues to try to talk to the holographic avatar through the windshield, revealing that the bike he’s been riding is his mother’s. Mystery solved, I suppose.

The cop car doesn’t much appreciate being slapped on the hood, and begins to rev violently at Sam, threatening to run him over several times. Then it explodes into being a robot. Sam, who’s seen a lot of really weird shit in the last 24 hours, nopes out of the situation. It’s at this point that I realize he’s wearing a shirt for the band the Strokes. I don’t know why that stuck out to me, but it did. Guess my brain needed something to latch onto during all this.

Sam is running as fast as his little legs allow, as our newest robot friend takes up a leisurely jog to keep pace. Then he kicks Sam. He kicks Sam’s body like the football. This, of course, instantly turns Sam into a bag of jelly and kills him, thus ending the film.

No, he doesn’t die. I just told another fib. I’m sorry.

Sam somehow survives being punted by a giant metal leg and lands in the windshield of a car that doesn’t turn into a robot. Then he gets yelled at by the cop car. This is Barricade, a member of the Decepticons, and Sam’s got something he wants. Or, should I say “LadiesMan217” has something he wants.

LadiesMan217 is Sam’s Ebay username. This is both stupid because no teenage boy existing beyond the year 1985 would have ever called himself that, and also because it’s just stupid.

Barricade wants the glasses Sam presented for his genealogy report, and he wants them NOW. Seeing as the thing he wants is for sale, and nobody had been bidding on it, one would wonder why Barricade and his associates didn’t just try to purchase them like upstanding citizens. Perhaps Decepticons don’t understand the concept of money, or perhaps they don’t have a stable address to have the glasses shipped to. Or perhaps nobody considered that angle when the script was being put together. Who can say?

Sam gets back to running away from Barricade, we see where Mikaela got to, and the two of them collide. Sam rips Mikaela off of her scooter, and they both fall to the ground. Mikaela, who did not buckle the clasp on her helmet, asks Sam what his fucking problem is. Then his problem shows up, and they take a very long time to get up so they can run. So long, in fact, that the Camaro has to swing in to save them. After much pleading from Sam, Mikaela gets inside Satan’s Camaro, and the two of them are whisked away to safety. Barricade pursues, and then the butt rock starts.

There’s a lot of screaming and yelling, the Camaro busts through a window and several shelves in an abandoned building, there’s some drifting, and then suddenly it’s nighttime. Barricade somehow got in front of the Camaro, and is circling like a shark. The Camaro locks the two teenagers inside itself, though I suppose they could climb out through the still-open windows if they really wanted to. The Camaro cuts the engine off, then cuts it back on and bolts for the exit, and this somehow tricks Barricade long enough for them to get past.

The Camaro dumps Mikaela and Sam out one of the doors and then transforms into that yellow space robot we saw a bit ago. It’s Bumblebee! Nearly an hour in, and we finally get a proper look at the little bastard. I guess that’s what happens when you spend the first 20-something minutes on being xenophobic and appealing to the focus groups that think it’s fine sexualize high schoolers.

Bumblebee- no, he’s not introduced himself yet, but I just can’t keep calling him “the Camaro” anymore- comes out of his transformation ready to square the fuck up. Barricade throws himself at Bumblebee, they roll around on the ground for a bit, then things start sparking and exploding, because this is a Michael Bay film. Frenzy jumps out and starts chasing down Mikaela and Sam, while Bumblebee and Barricade murder death punch each other. Frenzy manages to grab Sam by the ankles, drag him to the ground, and rip his pants off. Not sure how that happened, considering he’s still got his shoes on.

While Sam’s busy being chased by a sentient pile of safety pins, Mikaela’s taken it upon herself to be proactive about her survival, and is raiding a nearby building for power tools. She sprints out holding an electric jig saw and saves Sam by decapitating Frenzy. If you know anything about Transformers, then you know this doesn’t actually kill Frenzy, but good on her for being a badass. Why couldn’t Mikaela be our main character again? Oh, right, because she’s a ~girl~.

Sam punts Frenzy’s head, like, 50 yards, which seems like something he shouldn’t be able to do, given that he’s a massive weenie, but there you are. With that out of the way, Sam takes Mikaela’s hand and they run off to go watch the giant robot fight. The bottom of Frenzy’s head turns into a spider and he crawls his way over to Mikaela’s purse. He’s gonna steal her gum, the fiend!

Mikaela and Sam have, unfortunately, missed the giant robot fight, which means that we, as the audience, have also missed the giant robot fight. Which is unbelievably stupid, seeing as everyone who has ever watched this movie came for the GIANT GODDAMN ROBOTS.

Mikaela asks just who the hell the yellow robot is, I guess because she’s finally had a second to process what the hell’s going on. Sam claims that he’s a super-advanced robot, “probably from Japan.” Whether or not this is a reference to the Japanese origins of the original toy line isn’t clear, though somehow I think it’s more xenophobia. Sam also makes the claim that if Bumblebee had intended to hurt them, he would have done it by now. This is quite the jump from a few hours ago, when he was calling the poor guy “Satan’s Camaro.”

Sam finally, finally asks Bumblebee what his deal is, and we get our first taste of the Bayverse Bumblebee Gimmick. The Gimmick here is that, due to an injury to his vocal processing, Bumblebee cannot communicate through traditional means, i.e. speech. Because of this, he instead strings together sentences by flicking through the radio frequencies and choosing key words. This can lead to some interesting audio design, like describing his fellow Autobots to “rain down like visitors form heaven, Hallelujah!” because a radio sermon fit what he was trying to say best.

This gimmick is one that has been used in other pieces of Transformers media, at least in part. Bumblebee is unable to speak traditionally in Transformers: Prime, and instead communicates in beeps and clicks that his teammates can understand, but not so much the humans, save for Raf. In Bumblebee (2018), the idea was used whole-cloth, with the injury resulting in his inability to speak happening on-camera within the first 10 minutes of the movie, and the idea of “expressing oneself through music” being introduced by his human companion Charlie Watson.

All in all, I rather like the idea going on here; it’s an interesting part of his character that opens up for a lot of interesting and creative moments.

It’s just too bad it was introduced in fucking Bayverse.

But yeah, anyway, the other Autobots are coming to Earth. Shit’s gonna be lit.

Bumblebee turns back into a Camaro, and Sam uses the power of FOMO to get Mikaela to go in the car with him. We get a shot of Barricade fucking dying on the side of the road. Frenzy murders Mikaela’s phone, and then steals its identity, including the little bejeweled heart stickers. Good thing Mikaela remembered to go get her purse, otherwise he probably would have felt very silly doing that.

Mikaela refuses to sit in the driver’s seat, seeing as she now knows Sam’s car is sentient, and sort of feels weird about this whole thing. Sam suggests that she sit in his lap instead, as the camera angles to give us a peek at the cup of Mikaela’s bra. When asked why the hell she should do such a thing, Sam says it’s a concern about her safety, given that the middle console of the car does not have a seatbelt. Sam either fails to recognize that seatbelts going over two layered bodies won’t save either of them in the event of a crash, or he’s just trying to make an excuse to have a pretty girl in his lap.

Given what movie this is, I’m going to guess it’s the latter.

Mikaela has a similar line of thought, but scoots over anyway, saying that the seatbelt line was a “smooth move”. It wasn’t, but if I picked apart every single bad line Sam had in this film, I’d be here all day.

Mikaela questions Bumblebee’s taste in alt-mode, which offends him to the point of dumping both her and Sam out in the street and driving away. He returns, moments later, as a sleek new Camaro, that I’m sure some car aficionados would call “sexy.”

Bumblebee’s alt-mode is a 2009 Chevrolet Camaro, of which there were none during the time of filming. It was put together for this movie in roughly five weeks. Sam is blown away by the fact that he now owns a car that does not currently exist in his universe. Mikaela is impressed, or at least she would be, if women were allowed to show that emotion in a non-horny way in a Bay film.

Judy doesn’t count.

As Bumblebee breaks into yet another restricted area, we get a shot of the Earth from orbit, as several objects rocket towards the planet. Sam and Mikaela watch the Autobots burn up in the atmosphere, and Mikaela tries to hold Sam’s hand as they do, and it’s at this point that I have to address how much I hate these two’s dynamic.

I don’t give a single solitary shit about this romance, because A) it’s poorly written, B) Mikaela could do infinitely better than Sam, C) I dislike Sam so very much, D) Mikaela, who is a way more interesting character, got placed on friggin’ love interest duty because ~girl~, and E) it’s useless padding to try and make me care about what’s happening here, and I just DON’T. I do NOT care about whether these two get together or not.

We see the Autobots crash-land, three out of four of them causing massive amounts of property damage and possibly killing at least one person. Their stasis pods crack open, and they each climb out, completely naked and in desperate need of clothing to hide their shame. With a quick scan of nearby vehicles, they’re once again decent to be seen in public.

Bumblebee drives the kids out to what I can only assume is the warehouse district he sent that beacon out in, as our collection of good guys finally come together at long last. A massive Peterbilt semi-truck stops directly in front of Mikaela and Sam.

We’re over an hour into this film, and we’re just now getting to the quintessential Transformer, Optimus Prime himself.

In the original cartoon, Optimus’s alt-mode was what’s known as a cabover truck, one where the cab- where the driver sits- is seated directly over the engine. These were popular during the days when maximum truck-lengths were much shorter than they are currently. This is why when you look at height charts for Optimus over various continuities, his G1 cartoon counterpart much shorter than his other iterations.

Modern trucks are longer, and don’t need the cab to sit on top of the engine to save on space. The designers chose to use a Peterbilt to make sure that Optimus would have an imposing stature when compared to his fellow Autobots.

Because heaven forbid we not have heightism come into play in this film.

Our Autobots transform, and say what you will about these bastards being visually incomprehensible, the transformations themselves are cool as hell. My personal favorite is Jazz’s, where he does a cool windmill into his root mode.

Optimus crouches like he’s looking at a cool bug on the sidewalk and addresses Sam by name. He doesn’t even acknowledge Mikaela, which I find to be a bit rude, but whatever. He then introduces himself as the leader of the Autobots.

Peter Cullen is back as the voice for Optimus Prime, sounding wonderful as always. He almost wasn’t brought on for this project, because Michael Bay didn’t want him. If the fans hadn’t thrown a hissyfit, who knows who we would have gotten to be our space dad for the next hour and a half?

This is actually an issue that’s recurred several times in the last few years, and not just with Cullen; Frank Welker, the voice of Megatron, as well as many other Transformers, has been refused roles within Transformers properties. In general, this is because both Cullen and Welker are union actors, and Hasbro would prefer to hire sound-alikes than pay more money for the originals. This isn’t to shame the non-union actors, goodness no, just to merely point out less-than-fantastic business practices.

I realize there have been a lot of tangents, but you have to understand that I am suffering as I do this.

Optimus then introduces his team- there’s Jazz, whose first line is “What’s crackin’ little bitches?”, Ironhide, who incorrectly quotes Dirty Harry, and Ratchet, who calls out just how obnoxiously horny Sam’s character is. We also finally get Bumblebee’s name.

Mikaela asks the very good question of why the fuck the Autobots are here on Earth. Optimus explains that the AllSpark is here, and they’ve got to get to it before Megatron does. He then goes on to explain who Megatron is, stating that he “betrayed” the Cybertronian empire.

No, how exactly he did that isn’t addressed. We’ll just have to take Optimus’s word, I suppose.

If you’ve sussed out by this point the the AllSpark and the Cube™ are the same thing, congrats! You win. Megatron followed the AllSpark to Earth, where he promptly was neutralized by the cold of the Arctic circle. This was 110 years prior to the events of this film, and where Archibald Witwicky came in to the story.

When the expedition was happening, Archibald fell through the ice during a collapse, and ended up finding Megatron’s frozen body in an ice cave. He went poking around on this strange metal giant, and ended up activating Megatron’s navigation systems, which imprinted the coordinates of the AllSpark onto Archibald’s glasses.

Don’t ask how that works, it just does.

So, the Autobots need the glasses, so they can find the AllSpark before the Decepticons do, so those guys don’t use it to build an army out of Earth’s machines, which will destroy humanity.

Sounds simple enough, let’s go get that vision correction device!

Back with the military dudes, everyone’s taking a gander at the tail that Scorponok left behind. They theorize that the metal that makes up these giant murder-robots reacts to extreme heat, but elaboration on that point will have to wait, because the tail has begun to flail. They quickly strap it down, then call the military to let them know to strap anti-tank guns onto anything that’s going to be approaching any giant robots.

Meanwhile, in an interrogation room, Maddie and Glen have been left to sweat a bit. Glen takes to stress-eating, while framing it as a psychological tactic to subconsciously prove his innocence to the FBI.

This is a fat joke, with the added nasty layer of Glen being a black man about to be interrogated by one of the most intimidating white cops I’ve seen in a hot minute.

Glen immediately folds, pinning all the blame on Maddie, and claiming that he’s been a perfect angel his whole life. We get some weird purity culture out of him, before Maddie lets the FBI know that she needs to talk to the Secretary of Defense, NOW.

Over at the Witwicky household, Sam’s parents are watching the news, trying to find out what all those loud crashes were about. Optimus Prime drives down their residential street, the rest of the gang in tow, then they all park to wait for Sam to go get the glasses.

For about 20 seconds.

Sam has to physically hold the door shut to prevent his father from coming out and seeing several very tall robots from outer space tip-toeing around his freshly-landscaped yard, I guess because they got antsy. Optimus plods around on the grass and breaks a fountain, and our benevolent god Mojo comes out of the house, assuredly to smite the leader of the Autobots.

Mikaela runs onto the scene, and Sam chastises her for not controlling the robots who didn’t even acknowledge her existence, outside of pointing out Sam was sexually attracted to her.

Mojo pees on Ironhide’s foot, which prompts Ironhide to threaten to shoot the creature. This is why Ironhide isn’t getting into heaven. Sam, one of Mojo’s chosen few, claims that the mortal shell of his god is seen as a beloved pet by many humans. Sam runs into the house, before Mojo can incur his divine wrath on the Autobots.

While Sam goes to get the glasses, the Autobots decide to do a little peeping on the house, watching his parents watch TV. Sam tears his room apart trying to find the glasses, and Optimus thinks that it would be helpful if he brought Mikaela up to help look. It’s at this point that I realize that Sam has an utterly bizarre fish tank.

I mean, legitimately, what the fuck is this? No filter, no plants, might not even have any rocks on the bottom. Is this a comically oversized bong Sam threw a couple fish into? What the fuck.

Mikaela starts looking for the glasses, running into what is likely a box of porn mags, then they both look out the window to find that the Autobots have decided to hide in plain sight by transforming... in the middle of Sam’s backyard. Amazing work, gentlemen.

Sam finally convinces the Autobots to go sit in the alley and wait, only for Ratchet to run into a power line and trip into a greenhouse. The resulting impact is interpreted as an earthquake. Judy does not have the reaction one might expect from someone who’s lived in California for at least ten years.

Ratchet’s fine, by the way.

The power cuts out, and Ron goes up to check on his son, because he’s at least a halfway-decent father. Ratchet’s shining a light to aid in the search for the glasses. Sam’s parents notice this bright light, and bang on Sam’s door to see what’s up.

Sam quickly hides Mikaela and then attempts to salvage the situation, answering the door and trying to control the narrative. Unfortunately, Ron is far too inquisitive for Sam to do this, and then Judy asks if Sam was masturbating.

Judy, is privacy just not a thing to you? Because if not, it really ought to be.

She keeps going with it too, trying to come up with code words, until another one of the Autobots trips and causes Ron to panic again, climbing into Sam’s ancient claw-foot bathtub to protect himself. He looks out the window to check on his beloved yard, lamenting that the earthquake tore it up.

Ironhide is strongly considering killing Sam’s parents. Optimus tells him that they don’t harm humans, and also begins to wonder if he made a mistake bringing this guy along.

Back in Sam’s room, it’s becoming increasingly obvious that Sam is an absolutely terrible liar, and Mikaela reveals herself, if only to prevent Judy from trying to talk about self-pleasure again. Of course, now she gets to be subjected to both of Sam’s parents objectifying her, so this might be a lose-lose situation.

Sam is reminded that his backpack is in the kitchen, just in time for the government to show up at his house. Mikaela makes a comment about Judy being nice. I suppose on a surface level, yes, being told that you’re gorgeous by someone’s mom is nice. I do have to question the context that compliment took place in, however.

Sam’s about to hand the glasses over to the Autobots, when someone rings the doorbell. It’s Sector Seven, and they’re here to talk to Sam about his stolen car being part of an issue involving national security. Ron and Judy are more concerned about their yard being torn up, Judy yelling that they “need to get their hands off [her] bush.”

We still have another hour of this movie.

The agent leading this mission asks Sam to come with him for questioning, which his parents are very much against. Mojo also voices his displeasure, but it would seem that Agent Simmons is not a follower of the Tenets of Mojo. Sam gets geigered, and his readings are high enough for Sector Seven to take him and everyone in this house into custody.

As Sam and Mikaela are riding in the back of the car, Simmons brings up Sam’s Ebay account, and also the phone video he took of Bumblebee earlier in the week. Mikaela is rather unimpressed with Sam at the moment, probably because he’s gotten her arrested. She still tries to help him out though, because she really is just the nicest fucking person on the planet.

Alas, the combined efforts of these two teenagers isn’t enough to fool the long arm of the law, especially when it’s a branch of said law that deals with extraterrestrial activity. Simmons threatens to lock up these literal children for life if they don’t start talking. Mikaela isn’t taking the bait, so he goes after her father’s parole hearing instead.

Yep! As it turns out, Mikaela and her father stole cars to get by, and she’s got the record to back that claim up. Simmons calls her a criminal, then says that criminals are hot. Mikaela looks like she’s about to cry, and I don’t blame her in the slightest.

Optimus, I suppose because his dad senses were tingling, takes the opportunity to place his leg in the road for the car to run into, then grabs said car like an unruly cat and lifts it until the roof rips off due to stress. The agents in the other cars pile out and point their guns at the giant space robot. The rest of the Autobots quickly relieve them of their weapons.

Optimus notes that Simmons doesn’t seem surprised that a bunch of giant robots just took all his guys’ guns, and demands that he exit the vehicle, posthaste. Simmons obliges, after a bit more prodding. Mikaela undoes Sam’s handcuffs, and he gets fucking pissy about it, as if this girl he’s had a grand total of three (awkward) conversations with should have told him something as personal as “hey, so my dad’s in jail and I’ve been to juvenile detention.”

Luckily, she doesn’t let him get away with it, calling him out as the spoiled, self-centered, privileged little shithead that he is.

Of course, we don’t get any sort of real acknowledgement from Sam, having to move on with the plot. Perhaps, if we hadn’t spent the last hour and 20 minutes faffing about on drivel, we could have had Sam get an actual moment of self-reflection, and potentially even character growth. However, this is Bayverse, and everyone knows that personal accountability is for fucking sissies.

Mikaela and Sam ask several questions, but get no answers from Agent Simmons. And then Bumblebee pees on him.

I hate that I had to write that. I hate it very much.

Anyway, I don’t know why that had to happen, but it did, and I’m nothing if not thorough.

Optimus tells Bumblebee to cut it out, and with that the Sector Seven agents are cuffs and left on the side of the road. Mikaela orders Simmons to strip, as punishment for threatening her father, then cuffs him to a street lamp.

...Yes, that does sound like a bizarre sexual fantasy, doesn’t it?

Unfortunately for our teen heroes, they forgot to confiscate everyone’s phones, and Sector Seven knows what’s up, thanks to the power of speakerphone. More cars and a couple of helicopters show up basically immediately, and the Autobots decide it’s time to dip.

But not before Ironhide fires off a pulsewave into the ground that causes a five-car pileup.

Optimus, I suppose because he knows he chose a ridiculously flashy alt-mode that is in no way practical, just picks the kids up in and places them on his shoulder like a couple of parakeets, then takes up a leisurely jog to get away from the eyes in the sky. He runs through the city, racking up what is likely millions in property damage, as the helicopters pursue. He passes by a “Legalize LA” billboard, which feels odd to see, given what movie this is.

The ‘copters somehow manage to lose Optimus, despite him being relatively slow, and having a notable radiation level that they’ve been using to track him. He hides inside the scaffolding of a bridge, only for Mikaela and Sam to slip off of his polished body to their deaths, thus ending the film.

No, they don’t die. I just told another fib. I’m sorry.

Bumblebee snatches them up just before they hit the ground, the impact of his metal body catching them at 75 mph, killing them instantly and ending the film.

Nope, that doesn’t happen either.

Mikaela and Sam are fine, some-fucking-how, but Sam’s dropped the MacGuffin glasses. The helicopters swing back around, having noticed the sound of a car crashing into the ground and the screams of two whole adolescents. They break out a fucking harpoon gun and fire on our kid appeal character.

Repeatedly.

They wrap up Bumblebee in a series of cables, as he screams like a moose. Mikaela and Sam are held at gunpoint by what is honestly far too many dudes, and are then arrested for the second time in ten minutes. Bumblebee is smoked... because he’s a bee? Sam, not liking this one bit, finds the strength in his weenie body to push a cop off of himself, run at one of the dudes with the smoke guns, throw him to the ground, and then start smoking him. He’s immediately tackled, but points for trying.

Sam and Mikaela are placed back into custody, and the rest of the Autobots regroup with Optimus to see what the plan is. Optimus says that they can’t save Bumblebee without hurting humans, so I guess Bumblebee is just a POW now. Well, at least they got the glasses. That’s cool.

Back at the Pentagon, things are getting dicey, as the other world powers are starting to suspect that something’s up. The Secretary of Defense is approached by a man with a mustache and a briefcase. He’s from Sector Seven, but the Secretary gives not a fuck about mysterious organizations. All the computers in the room suddenly go down, the virus from earlier working its magic- only this time, the blackout is global.

Mr. Mustache opens his briefcase, while explaining that Sector Seven is something known as a “special access” sector of the government, which is why nobody’s ever heard of it; it’s beyond top secret. Commissioned by President Herbert Hoover 80 years prior, it deals with alien life.

When the Beagle 2 spacecraft was lost on the way to Mars in 2003, the mission was declared a failure. This was a lie. The Beagle 2 recorded several seconds of Mars before being crushed to death by a Transformer. This tidbit is pretty funny, given that the Beagle 2 was rediscovered on Mars in 2014, seven years after this film released. Not a terribly mysterious death anymore, is it?

Comparing the footage from Mars to the footage from Qatar has Sector Seven thinking that these are the same species. Which they are. God, it’d be so fucked up if there were two species of giant robots in this film.

Mr. Mustache theorizes that because the Transformers now know that they can be harmed by human weaponry, they’re being proactive about their safety and shutting down all forms of communication technology with that virus that keeps popping up. It’s only a matter of time before the shit hits the fan for humanity.

Mr. Secretary tells his guys to try going analog with comms, breaking out the short-wave radios, to tell their ships to return home.

Over at an Air Force base, Lennox and the gang have landed, only to be scooped up by a bunch of dudes in suits.

Back with Maddie and Glen, the two of them have fallen asleep in the interrogation room, Maddie still wearing her friggin’ four inch pumps as her legs are propped up on the table, crossed in a way that seems rather uncomfortable. Glen gets to sleep like a normal human being, with his head resting on his forearms. Why this place doesn’t have a holding cell for these situations is beyond me.

Mr. Secretary comes in to bring Maddie on as his advisor. Glen can come too, I guess, considering he’s the one who actually figured out the sound file virus.

We get a little military glorification, and then it’s revealed that Mikaela and Sam, as well as Maddie and Glen, are aboard this helicopter. Their paths cross at last. Our heroes are transported to the Hoover Dam, where Bumblebee is also. They are still smoking him.

Meanwhile, the Autobots are figuring out where to go, with the power of Archibald’s glasses. Ratchet, who I guess is omnipotent, senses that the Decepticons have also figured out the location, and that this is going to be a race against the clock. And I mean, he’s right, but the phrasing is a bit odd.

Jazz wants to know when they’re going to save Bumblebee. Optimus says that they aren’t, and that Bumblebee’s sacrifice is noble, and that he would want the Autobots to leave him and complete the mission. As this is said, we get another shot of Bumblebee getting smoked and trapped in a lab. Yep, this is totally what he would want. He absolutely signed up for this, giving himself up to the government and not at all fighting like mad to not be captured.

I don’t think Bayverse Optimus actually knows what martyrdom is, which is bizarre, given that it’s a major trait in a lot of other iterations of the character.

Ironhide isn’t even sure why they’re bothering to save humanity, given that humans are violent and awful, his point being hammered home as Bumblebee is tortured for scientific reasons. Ironhide seems to have forgotten that Cybertron has been at war for literally millions of years. Optimus has faith in humanity, however, stating that we’re “young”.

And then he says that he’s going to end his own race, by destroying the Cube™, which is how they reproduce, because that’s the only way to end the war.

Which is arguably one of the most hardcore fictional applications of eugenics ever conceived.

Being advocated for by Optimus Goddamn Prime.

We still have another 50 minutes of this movie.

Optimus then proves that he does, in fact, know what self-sacrifice is, stating that, if all else fails, he’ll shove the AllSpark into his spark, which will destroy them both. He’s pretty chill about it, too.

Up on top of the Hoover Dam, Frenzy has fallen out of Mikaela’s bag.

Mr. Secretary is also at the Hoover Dam now, as is Lennox’s team. Oh, and Agent Simmons, who is thankfully wearing pants. He offers to buy Sam a coffee, as repartitions for threatening his family, arresting him, and being a complete creep to a teenage girl. Sam gives not a fuck about caramel macchiatos with extra foam and chocolate drizzle, however. He only cares about his car.

Mr. Mustache, who is also here, needs Sam to spill the beans on all these friggin’ giant robots that are running around. This is where Sam realizes he has the upper hand for once, and he starts making demands. One such demand is having Mikaela’s record scrubbed clean, which is an actually very nice thing for him to have done for her. We’ll see if his intent comes to fruition. For now, it’s time to talk about Bumblebee.

We get a shot of all these folks heading into the secret base hidden inside the Hoover Dam, and it’s at this point that I notice that Maddie’s shirt is basically see-through.

Inside the Dam, we see that Sector Seven′s been keeping Megatron this entire time, keeping him neutralized with cryo-stasis since 1935. Cryopreservation was invented in the 50′s. This isn’t a nitpick, I just thought it was a neat little fact.

Megatron being on Earth has resulted in most modern technology. This sort of plot point always bothers me, because it takes away agency from the entire human race. We didn’t use our own ingenuity and work ethic to advance society, we plagiarized from a more advanced species. I dunno, it just rubs me the wrong way.

We get the part of the movie where info is hashed out, so that everyone is on the same page, Sam spouting off Autobot propaganda. We can forgive him for this,considering he’s 16, and no one is immune to propaganda, especially when they have zero way of doing their own research to form their own opinion with.

Sector Seven also has the AllSpark, kept in the room next to Megatron’s, like the chumps they will soon find themselves to be. It’s about ten stories tall and the reason the Hoover Dam exists. With so much concrete suppressing its alien energies, surely no one will ever find it!

Except for Frenzy, who came in through a mouse hole. Whoopsie-doodle!

The AllSpark zaps the nasty little man, restoring his body with its weird MacGuffin powers. Frenzy tells all his coworkers that he found what they were looking for, and everyone starts heading over.

Maddie asks Mr. Mustache what exactly he means by “energies”, perhaps worried that this whole thing has been some elaborate ploy to get her to invest in magic healing stones. Mr. Mustache brings everyone into a testing chamber, since the best way to explain how the AllSpark works is through a demonstration.

There’s a big fish tank in the middle of this testing chamber, in which Agent Simmons places a donated device from the crowd- Glen’s Nokia phone, specifically. Simmons makes a geologically-confused comment. When this is pointed out by Maddie, Mr. Secretary hushes her, simply saying that Simmons is a strange man. The tank is locked down, and then the show starts.

Cube™ energies are shot into the tank, and the phone explodes into life, transforming into a gorilla-shaped gremlin creature. Happy birthday, little dude!

Little dude starts shooting at the tank walls, cracking the glass until Simmons pulls the trigger and ends it. Happy deathday, little dude!

The Decepticons are making tracks towards the Hoover Dam, but Starscream- yeah, he’s in this now, don’t worry about it- arrives first, because he is a very fast jet. He transforms, showing off his ridiculous Dorito body, and fires on the base’s generators. The resulting explosions can be heard all the way down in the testing chamber, and Mr. Mustache calls upstairs to see what’s up. Looks like Megatron may be getting warmed up, seeing as his ice bath has been cut off. Lennox asks if there’s an arms room in Sector Seven, which sort of feels like asking a bakery if they have any flour.

Frenzy has entered the room that houses the controls for the cryo-stasis and set that whole system to “no, thank you”.

Mr. Mustache runs through the base, screaming for everyone to get to the Megatron chamber. Off in the distance, the Autobots approach. Could probably used some fliers on your team, huh Optimus?

Back with Frenzy, he’s decided to just straight-up raise Megatron’s core temperature directly. Hope he doesn’t do it too fast; rewarming hypothermia victims recklessly can do some serious damage.

Outside of the base, Lennox and the boys are loading up with weaponry, along with what’s the entirety of Sector Seven′s cannon-fodder department. Oh, and all the main cast. Yep, just got a couple of teenagers chillin’ in the munitions room.

Sam wants Simmons to take him to his car- he hasn’t used Bumblebee’s name in a hot minute, not sure what’s up with that- even though Simmons is currently busy loading a very large gun. Simmons doesn’t want to do that, because he’s got no idea if what Sam mentioned earlier is even true, and he doesn’t want to pin the fate of humanity on a single Camaro. Lennox takes this opportunity to tackle Simmons, despite likely not knowing that Bumblebee is one of the “good guys”. A Sector Seven guy very much doesn’t like that, and points a gun at Lennox, which prompts all of his guys to also start threatening folks with guns.

Mr. Mustache walks in on the scene, but doesn’t do anything, since he isn’t armed and knows better than to tangle with someone who’s packing. Simmons tries to intimidate Lennox, because he must have missed the day of boot camp where they tell you that guns kill people. Lennox is fully committed to shooting this dude in the lungs before Mr. Secretary suggests he give the people what they want, before things get ugly.

Simmons takes everyone to the robot torture department of Sector Seven, where they are still smoking Bumblebee. Geez, you’d think they’d have something in place for if they ever came across another giant robot after Megatron, but I guess not. The gang gets everyone to stop smoking Bumblebee, which allows him to stop moose-screaming and strongly consider murdering everyone involved with his forced captivity. Unfortunately, revenge with have to wait, as we’ve still got to deal with the AllSpark, and the fact that the Decepticons are here.

They take Bumblebee to the AllSpark, where he makes direct contact the thing, causing the AllSpark to transform, compacting itself down into a far more reasonable size that Bumblebee can carry in one hand. It doesn’t seem to weigh more than a grown adult, if his body language is saying anything. I’d make a joke about the conservation of mass being ignored, but since this is Transformers, I can’t really say much. Conservation of mass doesn’t exist for this franchise.

Bumblebee would really like to get this show on the road, and Lennox agrees, quickly formulating a plan to get away from Megatron and taking the AllSpark to Mission City, which is relatively close to their current location, so that they can hide it there.

Lennox, I know this plan is a first draft, and we don’t have a ton of time for revisions, but the whole point of building a whole-ass dam around the Cube™ was because it was very difficult to hide, given its magical MacGuffin powers. Regardless of this flaw, Mr. Secretary agrees. Lennox also asks that the Air Force be involved in this, I guess because the U.S. military wanted more screentime.

Of course, that whole “global blackout” thing is still going on, so we’re going to have to get creative with how we’re going to contact the Air Force. Mr. Secretary and Simmons make a break for the WWII-era radio Sector Seven has, while Lennox and the boys head out to shoot things, and Mikaela and Sam hop into Bumblebee with the Cube™.

This is about the point that Megatron wakes up. The first thing he does is introduce himself, which I thought was very polite of him. Then he breaks out his flail and starts bashing shit around. Not so polite, that.

Over with Bumblebee, we’re shown that the AllSpark, all-powerful object that can create life and is the whole reason this conflict is even happening, is just chillin’ in the back seat by itself. It’s not even buckled up.

Megatron escapes the base, and it’s actually super easy. He just transforms, goes through the tunnel, and he’s free. I feel like we could have at least attempted some security measures for in case the cryo-stasis failed, given that we’ve had this dude in containment for the last 70-something years, but okay.

Starscream comes over to say hi to his boss, not that Megatron gives a shit. He just wants to know where that fucking Cube™ is. When Starscream tells him that the humans have it, Megatron makes a comment about how Starscream has failed him yet again. This is their first interaction in this movie, and Starscream’s been in the story for a grand total of five minutes at this point. I know that this is a reference to their dynamic in just about every installment of the franchise up to this point, but it doesn’t feel earned in the slightest. Even if it’s going to be expanded upon in future sequels, this is a shit-tier way to set their (awful) relationship up.

Not that anyone should ever bank on getting a sequel anyway, but that’s a discussion for another time.

Megatron tells Starscream to retrieve the AllSpark, and then we cut over to the radio plotline. The radio, which is so cobweb-covered I feel like Sector Seven needs to have a serious discussion with their custodial staff, has its nobs and buttons fiddled with by Simmons until it crackles to life. But where are the microphones? Everyone starts looking for the mics, as Simmons pushes Glen into the seat, I guess because hacking modern computers and using Depression-era radio tech are similar enough.

Maddie asks Glen if he can hotwire a 90′s-era computer to transmit a tone through the radio, so that they can send a Morse code message to the Air Force. Which sounds ridiculous to me, but I don’t know enough about radios or computers to know if that sort of thing would be possible. Maybe it’s fine. Or maybe it’s Hollywood bullshit. Who knows?

Back over with Bumblebee, we get a bunch of car commercial shots, of both him and the other Autobots. Aww, the gang’s back together again! Nobody tell Bumblebee that Optimus was completely cool with leaving him to his fate.

Optimus and the gang whip around to join the convoy, and everyone makes their way towards Mission City.

Back at the radio subplot, someone’s bangin’ on the door, trying to get in. The others try to block the intruder, while Glen does his hacking stuff. Mr. Secretary breaks a case and pulls out a gun that’s about as old as he is.

Glen gets the computer working, and Mr. Secretary gives him the Super Secret Military Codewords™ to use to talk to the Air Force. While he does that, Simmons finds a flamethrower and starts burning Frenzy as he attempts to enter the room. The Air Force receives the message for an air strike. Oh, goody.

Over with the convoy, it appears that the Autobots and Lennox’s boys are being pursued by the Decepticons. It’s difficult to tell, seeing as the cameras have gone full Bay-mode, but I’m guessing that’s what’s up. One of the Decepticons flips over a minivan, likely killing a family of five. another causes a multi-car pileup.

Bonecrusher transforms, then Optimus transforms. Bonecrusher iceskates across the highway, slamming into a bus so hard it just straight-up explodes. He is on fire. He tackles Optimus, and they proceed to fall off the side of the raised highway they’re on. Then they beat the shit out of each other, until Optimus decapitates Bonecrusher with his arm-sword.

Yeah, space dad is a little intense in the Bayverse.

Back at Sector Seven, Frenzy’s decided to leave the door alone, and instead is crawling through the ventilation shaft. Mr. Secretary and Simmons fire off shots into the duct above them, as if bullets would do anything against this nasty little pile of needles.

Frenzy bursts through the bottom of the duct and crash-lands into a glass case, taking cover behind a pillar and fires on the humans on the other side of the room. While this shootout is happening, Glen receives a response from the Air Force, just in time for Frenzy to accidentally decapitate himself with one of his own spinning blades of death. This time, he does not survive losing his head.

The Air Force will be sending fighter planes to Mission City, and to establish this, we get several shots of what some might call “military porn.”

Over in the city, the convoy has arrived. Lennox hands several short-wave radios over to Epps, telling him to use them to direct the Air Force when they arrive, so they can take the AllSpark... somewhere, I guess. Above, an F-22 zooms across the sky. It is not one of the Air Force’s F-22s.

Ironhide recognizes Starscream, and gets ready to throw down. Bumblebee grabs a nearby Furby truck and hoists it up to use as a shield. This marginally works, as the missile that hits the truck doesn’t immediately kill him, though it probably did all those Furbies inside.

The resulting explosion throws all the humans around, Mikaela getting weird heaven lighting as she lies unconscious on the pavement. Sam gets it too, though, so I suppose I can’t complain too much about this particular shot. They touch hands. I really wish that I could take this moment of vulnerability as being anything other than an attempt to set up a romance between these two teens who have known each other for maybe half a week. This movie has so starved me of genuine human interaction I'm jumping at the smallest of scraps.

Bumblebee actually didn’t get out of that missile-strike unscathed, his legs having been blown off. All those Furbies died for nothing. Tragic. Sam asks Bumblebee if he’s alright, and immediately tells him to get up. Sam then remembers that Bumblebee’s legs are off, so he yells for Ratchet.

Over with Lennox and Epps, they’ve realized that the plane they saw wasn’t one of theirs. Which, you know, has already been established, but points for getting caught up, fellas. Sam is crying and still telling Bumblebee to get up. Bumblebee is dragging himself across the pavement and whimpering. It’s awful. Where the fuck is Ratchet? This is basically the only reason he’s in this film, and he’s nowhere to be found.

The actual Air Force calls on the radio, asking for their location. Brawl, who is a tank, starts firing on Lennox’s gang. Jazz and Ratchet race through the city streets. How they were separated from the rest of the team is anyone’s guess.

Sam takes a little sit on the pavement to be with Bumblebee, while Mikaela decides to problem-solve and heads for a nearby tow truck. Bumblebee hands Sam the Cube™ because, as the designated protagonist, it’s his job to handle it in the climax of the film.

Ironhide is shot at several times by Brawl, narrowly avoiding being hit each time. This, of course, means that the people he drives by in this shot are almost assuredly dead, since they’re right next to the explosions. He transforms and does a flip, as the film goes slow-mo on a shot of a woman in a low-cut dress watching him flip. She screams. Ironhide screams. I scream, though probably for a different reason.

Jazz jumps on Brawl, managing to kick off a couple pieces of kibble before Brawl grabs him and throws him into the side of a building. Ironhide, Optimus, and Ratchet descend on Brawl, and so does Lennox’s team, Brawl losing a hand and getting thrown into his own building as a result.

Mikaela breaks into the tow truck and starts to hotwire that shit. Wow, a relevant back story that culminates in her being able to save the day, thus completing her arc and staying on-theme for her character. Why isn’t Mikaela the protagonist again?

Oh, right, because ~girl~.

Megatron lands in a nearby alleyway, and Ratchet, knowing this dude is bad news, tells everyone to head for the hills. Jazz isn’t fast enough, however, and gets shot for his troubles.

Mikaela drives the truck over to Sam, who is still sitting there with the Cube™, and tells him to get his ass in gear.

Jazz gets taken to the top of a nearby building and is ripped in two by Megatron, who acts like a bird of prey the whole sequence. Down on the ground, Brawl is starting to get back up from his smackdown. Blackout appears on a nearby skyscraper. Things are looking grim for humanity.

Mikaela and Sam hook Bumblebee up to the tow line as Lennox approaches them. Sam has left the AllSpark out of his line of sight, like a fool. Despite seeing this, Lennox still gives him the flare to let the military know where to pick up the AllSpark. Doesn’t even acknowledge Mikaela. He tells Sam to head for the white building with statues on top of it and set the flare on top of the roof. Lennox can’t leave his men, because he’s the head of his operation. Why he can’t send literally anyone else who isn’t a 16 year-old boy isn’t made clear.

Sam really doesn’t want to do this, probably because he’s a child, but Lennox has recruited him to the military against his will, so he must. Lennox then attempts to make Mikaela leave for her own good, but she tells him to fuck off, because she’s gonna save Bumblebee. Clearly, this is a win for feminism.

Epps radios the choppers coming from the Air Force to let them know they’ll be picking up a package from a teenager, thus locking Sam into the job. Ironhide and Ratchet vow to protect Sam from the Decepticons on his way to the pickup point. Not one single person has pointed out how fucked up this is.

Sam starts to run off, when Mikaela stops him to let him know that she’s glad she got in the car with him roughly an hour ago. They don’t kiss goodbye, which, honestly? Good. This fucking movie hasn’t earned that. Sam for sure hasn’t earned that, even if he did clear her juvie record. No word on that having actually been done, by the way. Sam never got confirmation, and I feel like he’s not really the type to follow up on things.

Brawl fires off some shots and makes things explode. Ratchet and Ironhide provide cover fire as Sam sprints down the road. Yep, they’re making this idiot WALK to the pickup point. Sure hope the elevators are working today, otherwise this is going to take forever.

Sam carries the AllSpark like a football, and in a better movie, this would have been foreshadowed by Sam having actually been a football player prior to the events of the film, perhaps removed from the team for some character flaw he’s since grown from/accepted. However, this is Bayverse, and well, men don’t have to justify their existence in the story with things like themes and having even an ounce of thought put into their character.

Back with Mikaela, Lennox has refused to learn her name, calling her “girl” as he screams at her to get Bumblebee hooked up to the tow truck. Which she was already doing when he got here. Lennox, dude, you’ve got a daughter now, you’re super extra not allowed to treat women like this.

Optimus Prime pulls through an alleyway and crashes into a pile of garbage. I can forgive him being late, seeing as he is a big rig, and probably had to take the long way into town so he didn’t get stuck in too-low tunnels. Don’t worry about how we briefly saw him during the Brawl take-down. This is his for real entrance into the climax.

He whips around and transforms, ready to throw the fuck down. Megatron spots him from his perch and descends.

Y’know.

Like a vast, predatory bird.

Megatron shoots at Optimus in his alt-mode, and Optimus catches him like a frisbee. Unfortunately for Optimus, it would appear that the horsepower on a Cybertronian flightcraft is hella intense, and he’s carried away. The two of them crash through an office building, then roll around in the streets punching each other in the face, debating the worth of humanity as they do so. Wish I actually gave a shit about either of these people, but alas! The film spent most of its runtime objectifying women and insulting minorities. I know nothing about Optimus, and even less about Megatron.

Megatron transforms his arms into a laser gun, and Optimus does the same. They shoot at each other. Optimus gets thrown into a building, then lands on the sidewalk below, definitely crushing a dude underneath him, but I guess we didn’t check that the shot was clear for where the CGI was gonna go, so he’s fine.

Sam’s still running through the streets, while Blackout murders, like, so many people behind him. Starscream lands in front of Sam, running into roughly 30 cars as he skids to a halt. Ratchet and Ironhide fire on him, as Sam takes a breather behind a car. Starscream transforms and blasts off. He was here for about 15 seconds. Sam begins running again.

Megatron is now following Sam, because he wants that Cube™. Sam is hit by a car- not an evil one, just a regular car- and trips. The impact makes the AllSpark activate, which grants several machines in the vicinity the gift of life, including the car full of bitchy women that just hit Sam, who are upset that hitting a human being might have scratched the paint.

I get it, you hate women, can we PLEASE stop beating this dead horse?

Sam finally gets to the pickup building, which turns out to be abandoned and fenced off. Good thing the gate was open, otherwise things could get really complicated. He heads inside, Megatron crashing through a floor-to-ceiling window shortly behind him. Megatron makes the claim that he can smell where Sam is. I’m going to choose to believe that he isn’t lying here, since Ratchet did something similar earlier.

Sam finds the stairs, and Megatron calls him a slur.

He doesn’t, really, but the voice modulation certainly makes it sound that way.

While this is happening, Mikaela is driving the tow truck down an alley, dragging Bumblebee behind her with the tow cable. She stops for a moment to have a short breakdown, seeing as she is a teenager in what is currently a warzone.

Sam is still running up the stairs. Outside, the military shoots at one of the Decepticons. It is, of course, doing absolutely nothing to the giant metal space robot. Mikaela concludes her moment, looking back at Bumblebee, who gives her the okay to keep going with dragging his ass across the pavement. She whips the truck around and tells Bumblebee “I’ll drive, you shoot.”

Mikaela then proceeds to speed down a main road of this sizable city backwards, running into cars and more or less shoving Bumblebee along to his destination.

The military has finally realized that their efforts have been pointless, but it’s okay because Bumblebee is here with his superior firepower. Bumblebee proceeds to shoot Brawl in the chest, which kills him. After this, he tries to act cute, lifting up his battle mask in a very “did I do that?” way, as if he’s not the same guy who ripped Barricade apart earlier.

Sam, meanwhile, has finally reached the top of this dilapidated building. Helicopters are approaching his location, but will they make it to him before Megatron does? Honestly, I’d be more worried about Starscream on the building just due East.

Sam is just about to hand the AllSpark over, when Starscream fires at the ‘copter, causing it to crash and nearly chop Sam to pieces. Optimus Prime runs towards the scene, on a roof that I refuse to believe could actually support him. Megatron punches thought the roof from the bottom and asks Sam some philosophical questions. Sam can’t answer, given that he’s hiding on the edge of this building, his flimsy grip on one of the angel statues being the only thing keeping him from falling.

Megatron tells him to give him the AllSpark, and in exchange he might not kill him immediately. Sam tells him to fuck off, and Megatron flails the chunk of building he was hanging on to, causing Sam to fall to his death, thus ending the film.

I’m lying to you. Michael Bay is making me into a liar.

No, Sam is, instead, caught by Optimus, very likely breaking several ribs on impact. This is the point where I realize that they’ve given Optimus fingernails. Sam clings to him like a baby koala, as Optimus parkours down the sides of two buildings, Megatron in pursuit. Megatron actually lands on Optimus 2/3rds of the way down, causing the both of them to fall onto the pavement below. How Sam survives this is a mystery.

Megatron recovers from the fall first, flicking a human away from him for having the audacity to exist in his space. The flicked person hits a car, and is almost assuredly dead. At least, I sure hope so, given that this is the director cameo by the Bayman himself.

Feminist icon Megatron?

Feminist icon Megatron.

Optimus comments on the fact that Sam almost fucking died to get the AllSpark out of dodge, and we get the return of “No Sacrifice, No Victory”. Which, I mean, I guess he’s allowed to say that, since he’s actually had to do something that warranted it. His dad doesn’t get to, though.

Optimus then tells this teenage boy, who has already had a hell of a day, to kill him by shoving the AllSpark into his robot-soul-heart, should he be unable to defeat Megatron.

I dunno, I just feel like it’s a bit of an ask.

Sam climbs off of Optimus so the Prime and Megatron can rumble. He runs through the ruined infrastructure of the city, so he’s less likely to be crushed. Optimus tells Megatron to square the fuck up, stating that “one shall stand, one shall fall.”

Then he gets ragdolled around a bunch, so maybe he should have saved the talk for later in the game.

The military is running around some more, stopping in an alley to see Blackout transform to root mode. Yes, the goo-goo eyes were indeed made by several members of the watch party that started this whole thing. People went wild for Rotor-Cape Johnson.

The fighter jets from the US military are arriving in a minute. Epps warns them to aim for the robots that aren’t evil. Lennox and the gang spread out, reminding each other to aim for the underboob, since Transformers’ armor is weak there. Epps marks Blackout with a little green light, which Blackout almost immediately notices. Blackout fires on the military.

Lennox has stolen a motorcycle and is driving through the streets to circle back around and jump off of the bike, sliding on his back to shoot Blackout directly in his underboob. Wonder what his uniform is rated for for road rash.

Sam is watching as Optimus gets his ass handed to him. Up in the sky, Starscream commits identity theft, and then attacks the Air Force. The Air Force can multitask however, and light Megatron the fuck up. Sam has, for some reason, come out of hiding, and Megatron uses this to his advantage, trying to take the AllSpark from him.

Optimus tells Sam to put the AllSpark in his chest, but Sam has a better idea. He shoves it into Megatron’s chest, which has been basically shot open at this point. Megatron makes a Space Invader noise, convulses a bit, then falls over dead.

Congrats on your first murder, Sam.

Optimus tells Megatron’s corpse that he got what was coming to him, then implies that they’re brothers. What flavor of brother isn’t established, but neither was basically anything between the two main faces of the franchise in this film, so it’s fine.

Ironhide walks up holding the two halves of Jazz. Optimus informs Sam that he now has a life-debt to this child. Whether or not Sam is absorbing any information at this point is up in the air. Mikaela shows up, with Bumblebee in tow.

In tow.

In tow-

Sam stares at her blankly. Mikaela stares back, making the pretty girl face. Man, what a great dynamic these two have.

Jazz is dead. That sucks. Optimus is handed his corpse to hold, while he thanks his new friends for helping out.

Then Bumblebee talks and he’s fucKING BRITISH.

Sam is obviously shocked by the fact that Bumblebee is British able to talk now, since not talking has been his whole thing up to this point. Optimus doesn’t let it phase him. Neither does Ratchet, despite having been working on Bumblebee’s throat injury for centuries at this point.

Bumblebee wants to stay on Earth with Sam. Optimus is just like whatever. Sam agrees to have a sweet Camaro from outer space.

Optimus pulls what is left of the AllSpark out of Megatron’s chest. I’m sure that’s not a setup for potential conflicts, not in the slightest.

Over in Washington, D.C., the US President has ordered Sector Seven be terminated, and all the Transformer corpses be disposed of. And by “disposed of” they mean “thrown into the ocean.” Dang, sure hope Earth signed some sort of agreement with the Transformers so that they never come to Earth again. You know, just be proactive about our galactic safety.

The Linkin Park kicks on, as Optimus gives us our bookend narration, telling us what the Autobots plan to do now that their race is at a genological dead end. As he does, we see Lennox reunite with his wife and child, who I had genuinely forgotten were in this movie.

Optimus is pretty chill with Cybertron dying out, because now they know about Earth. We get a shot of Sam and Mikaela making out, a shot that becomes more and more horrifying the further they zoom out, because they’re making out on top of Bumblebee. Who they KNOW is a sentient creature at this point.

And then it gets even worse, because the shot changes, and oh hey! Turns out that the rest of the Autobots were just chillin’ off to the side while this went down. Optimus continues his monologue, just walking around in his root mode as he tells all of Makeout Point how they’re “robots in disguise” now.

The monologue is actually a transmission he’s sending out into space, inviting any of his leftover pals to come kick it on Earth with them, because Earth is pretty cool.

And that’s where they leave us.

IT TOOK THREE PEOPLE TO WRITE THIS SCHLOCK.

So. Bayverse 1. A film showcasing xenophobia, misogyny, and toxic nationalism. It’s rough. Is it the worst film I’ve ever seen? Not even close, but it’s bad, and it was a huge deal at the time of release. Everyone was seeing it, everyone knew the actors and robots, everyone had a scene that they liked. Everyone was exposed to Bayverse, and as a result, a lot of people entered the Transformers franchise thinking that it was all like this.

And really, how far off would they have been in 2007?

When a franchise refuses to introduce female characters until years after being established, when all those female characters have the exact same body type, when a franchise hires misogynists to write stories, when it allows shit like “Prime’s Rib!” to be published- no wonder Michael Bay was approached to direct.

What a mess.

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COMING SOON:

TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN (2009) - MEGAN FOX I AM SO FUCKING SORRY

TRANSFORMERS: DARK OF THE MOON (2011) - WILL YOU JUST STAY DEAD

TRANSFORMERS: AGE OF EXTINCTION (2014) - SHUT UP ABOUT THE LAW SHUT UP ABOUT THE LAW

TRANSFORMERS: THE LAST KNIGHT (2017) - ACTUALLY, FUCK CONTINUITY

#transformers #bayverse #part one #maccadam #Hannzreads #Hannzwatches #text post #long post #film analysis #off topic

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earthnashes · 4 years

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FINALLY! After a little while of work I’ve finally designed and drew each of the main races for Lorule! So that means, LORULE HEADCANONNNNNNNN!!!!! 8D aight ya’ll, let’s get right into it:

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Lorule is one of the Seven Kingdoms in the world of LoZ (not sure what to call the actual world itself), and the direct neighbor to Hyrule. Despite its harsh climates and highly varying regions, Lorule is prosperous and a staple realm among the Kingdoms. It’s ruled by the queen Hilda and inhabited by the following races (alongside some lore bits for the characters representing them):

-Lorians: A people who are of the same race as Hylians and thus share the trait of having pointed ears. Lorians, however, commonly have darker skin tones and lighter eyes, raging from copper brown to golden yellow in contrast to the common greens and blues of Hylians. While scattered all across Lorule, their capitol resides in the center of the vast drylands, smack-dab in the middle of an oasis.

Queen Hilda is the current ruler of Lorule and the youngest one to assume the crown (she became queen at the age of 16). She gained her position due to her father stepping down in light of ailing health, and has since earned a reputation of being a just and competent queen. She's strict and can be intimidating with how no-nonsense she is, but does whatever she can to do right by her subjects and allies. A bit of a big sister/mentor figure to Zelda.

Ravio is a young farm lad who has big aspirations to be a court mage. Thin as a rail with a timid, shy disposition to match, Ravio scares rather easily, but he works hard and dreams big for his future. He was taken in by Ooccoo when he was just a baby, having found him hidden under a blanket within a ransacked carriage. He idolizes the Queen and wishes to be as strong as her.

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-Yamatami: This race of humanoids are as tall as they are lean and thin, characterized by their unique masks they never take off and their ability to transform into giant snake-like creatures. The Yamatami inhabit the marshlands and mostly keep to themselves, though they are highly sought after trading-wise for their venom. They are lead by the somewhat oafish chief King.

Mamba is King’s daughter, and therefore the next-in-line to be chief once he steps down. As much as Mamba adores her tribe, she longs for a life of adventure, ever so curious about the world beyond their marshland boundaries. Part of her hesitation on being chief secretly banks on her fear of not being fit for the role. She’s a dreamer, very bubbly, friendly, and somewhat naive, but all she wants is to be able to make her own path.

Faux (pronounced “fawks”) is resourceful, fast, and cautious. They’re one of the best warriors the Yamatami have to offer, and through that they’ve become the trusted bodyguard to Mamba. Faux might seem indifferent to the overtly friendly princess but don’t let that fool you; they are ever watchful and ever so protective of their charge.

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-Oocca: Bird-like race with human-esque faces, they are a peaceful people who inhabit a great city hovering in the sky. The Oocca dislike conflict, though this is possibly because they themselves have no means of self-defense nor combat prowess, though they more than contribute their fair share to the Lorule alliance via their expertise in trade and commerce, as well as their advanced technology. Given their general lack of combative means, their city is inhabited by guards from the other native races, as per their negotiations. Anywhere you go, there’s almost certainly an Oocca merchant handling the finances of the city.

Ooccoo, sometimes known as Miss O, is the sweet, gentle single mother of Junior. She makes her peaceful living running a homely inn and selling knick-knacks in the small farm village Ravio grew up in. She also doubles as the resident repair shop, using her skill in tinkering to keep the village's tech and tools in tip-top shape. Ooccoo has a knack of taking in any stragglers that she may run across, which has led her to taking in Ravio and raising him as if he were her own. She has an unusual assistant: an old battle-worn Lynel (to be designed later!) she calls Lyo.

Junior is Ooccoo's outgoing young son. Ever so eager to make friends and lend a hand whenever he can, Junior helps his mother run her inn and shop. He's high on energy and sometimes runs too fast for his legs to carry him (he has a penchant for tripping), and someitmes he talks a little too much, but all he wants to do is make sure you feel welcomed when under their care. He often uses berry branches as hair ties so he can have a small snack anywhere he goes!

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-Yook: Otherwise known as Yetis, they are a race of huge, gorilla-like bipedal creatures who live on the peaks of the freezing, snowy mountains of Lorule. Despite their fearsome appearance and gargantuan strength, they're rather friendly, and have been known to guide lost hikers back on the trail to return home. Unfortunately, the Yook were once hunted to near genocide for their thick coats and tough hides before the practice was outlawed, and so they're cautious towards outsiders. It's only recently that they've begun to allow visitors to their humble village, but the current political climate among the Yook is a tremulous one.

Yeto was once the leader to the Yook before being beaten in a fight for the title against his younger adversary, Yuk. Now he and his beloved wife Yeta live out in the outskirts of the hidden village, living a quiet life while dedicating themselves to helping lost travelers and keeping them away from the village. This is mostly because, under Yuk's aggressive leadership, the Yook village is not safe for outsiders.

Yeta is Yeto's soft-spoken wife. Yeta is motherly to a fault, with barely a hostile bone in her body, but she isn't one to be pushed around. Upon her husband's defeat to Yuk in combat, she was outspoken on the harm he would cause their village by leading them down a violent path and was the only other one to stand up against the newly crowned chief, the others too afraid to say anything. She and Yeto were then forced to leave the village, living on the outskirts and dedicating themselves to keep outsiders away for their own safety.

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-Mogma: Andromorphic mole-like peoples who make their homes in the dry grasslands, the closest neighbors to the Lorian capitol. They generally grow to be large with huge, long claws for digging, and their villages and cities are known to mostly reside below ground. They are largely artisan by culture, focusing most of their energies in making, and collecting, knick-knacks and treasures. Their drive for all things shiny and pretty make them excellent treasure hunters, and many Mogma make lucrative careers out of being treasure-hunters-for-hire. They are a semi-nomadic people.

Guld was once the leader of the Mogma before he finally stepped down and gave the title to Ledd. One of the few Mogma to make his residence above ground, Guld has retired to a peaceful life of farming and selling pumpkins and other little trinkets he finds during his evening strolls. Despite long-since stepping down as leader, the Mogma often seek him out for guidance still, and he’s worried that it’s because they aren’t trusting their new leader as much as he’d hoped.

Ledd is the newfound leader of the Mogma, chosen by Guld for his courage and finesse in finding treasures. For all of his perceived confidence, Ledd is unsure of his newfound position, and his lack of action has led other Mogma to believe he is unfit for the role. His only supporter is Plats, his best buddy, and Guld. He’s determined to prove that he wants to be the leader the Mogma deserves, but is unsure how to do so.

Plats is the kindly and rather nervous buddy of Ledd, and the youngest brother of three. Unlike the rest of his kin, Plats is far more interested in simply trading items and hunting for food instead of shinies, which contributes to his round figure and his resident duty as town merchant. Given his rather cowardly disposition, Plats rarely ever tries to go treasure hunting, something his brothers often tease him about. He is the only one who has faith in Ledd’s leadership among their kin with the only other exception being Guld.

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WHEW!!! That got a bit long, but I’m glad to say that it’s out there for ya’ll to see! :3 I had a whole lot of fun working on this headcanon and if you have any questions please feel more than free to ask!! ;w;

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More LoZ headcanons | My Patreon |

#loz #nintendo #Character Design #legend of zelda #breath of the wild #botw #nintendo headcanon #loz headcanon #princess hilda #ravio #mogma #yeti #oocca #yamatami #lorule

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pandaponderart · 3 years

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Underrated Anime Part 1:

Hello my fellow Weebs, I’m back for some more Anime blogging, this time to talk about so not so well known ones. Some that have got forgotten with time, some that new Anime fans have maybe never heard of and the ones that I feel deserve more love and recognition. I’ve been watching Anime for about 13 years so I’ve seen a lot so this will be in at least 3 parts, so hopefully you like this and look forward to more. Til then enjoy, hope you can find some new anime you’ve never heard of thanks for reading and look forward to part 2!.

1. Azumanga Daioh(2002)

Starting off with an older Anime, and one of the best and earlier comedy, slice of life Anime that paved the way for a lot of other Anime in the same genre like Nichijou and Daily Lives of High School Boys. Off the wall and highly unrealistic, this comedy is completely over the top in the best way possible. it’s old but gold and should be crowned as one of the best comedy Anime to exist.

With the most lovable cast, you have Chiyo the 5th grader who is so crazy smart she gets placed in a high school class, then there’s Osaka, who’a real name is Ayumu Kasuga who’s named that because she‘s from Osaka. Osaka isn’t the smartest and neither is her other classmate Tomo Takino who will do anything to avoid studying. Then to balance out the cast is Koyomi Mizuhara aka Yomi, the smart one who keeps everyone in line and Kagura the sporty one. Then of course can’t forget to mention the teachers Yukari Sensei who is anything but the normal responsible teacher and to balance her out Minamo Sensei the responsible one. There’s no real plot with Azumanga Daioh but there’s not meant to be it’s just an over the top comedy slice of life, with moments that will make you laugh from your gut. It’s all about the characters and the ridiculous situations their put in and each one is a lovable idiot that really drives the show. Give this one a shot if you want a show that will put a big smile on your face the whole way through.

2. Eden of The East (2009)

Another older Anime, not everything on this list will be older Anime but there’s so many good ones like this!. Eden of The East is an action, mystery with elements of romance with one of the most unique stories I’ve seen in Anime. It’s a short watch being only eleven episodes with two movies following after which I recommend watching because they continue the story. I’m really surprised not more people know or talk about this show but it need to be talked about more!.

With one of the funniest and most bizarre starts to an Anime, our lead charcter Saki is on a trip to Washington D.C, when she gets in trouble for throwing a coin in the White House’s fountain she’s saved by a naked man who claims to be a terrorist. Not only is this mysterious man naked and claims to be a terrorist, he also has amnesia and is carrying a phone with 8.2 million dollars. Saki befriends this strange man and throughout the story they try to uncover more of his past, his involvment in an incident called careless monday and a dangerous death game with other players. They must also spend all of the money as instucted by the mysterious voice in the phone Juiz as well as try to save the world.

3. R.O.D The TV( 2003)

Ok I know I said this list wouldn’t only be older Anime but I guess the older Anime just has my heart and this one has a special place in mine. One of my all time favorites and one of the earliest Anime I saw and it still holds up to me til this day. It is hands down probably the most underrated show on this entire list and if you only watch one of these Anime please make it this one. The story is completely original, the characters are complex and endearing, there’s action, heartwarming moments, comedy and mystery, I wish there was more Anime like it, it deserves to be a classic.

It‘s a one of a kind show about the paper sisters Michelle, the oldest bubbly bookworm, Maggie the seemingly intimidating quiet giant. Then you have the youngest sister Anita who unlike her sisters hates books, she’s a bit rough around the edges but loves her sisters. Although they aren’t actually sisters they have a detective agency to help find lost books to help pay for rent while also doing odd jobs like being body guards. Their first assignment is to protect the author, Nenene Sumiragawa who is being threatened to be killed at her book signing. The paper sisters aren’t called that just because of their love of books, they can turn paper into weapons and whatever else they please, but each having their speciality. Nenene finds out they‘re paper sisters just like her friend who ‘s missing, Yomiko Readman and asks them for help finding her. They try to help Nenene find her friend, while solving other cases and saving the world with the power of paper.

4. Baccano(2007)

Probably the most well known but also I think one of the most under appreciated Anime, from Durarara’s creator, Baccano. I feel like most newer Anime fans won’t know this one and although it’s a beloved series by many, I still feel it’s underrated. Also another bias opinion shocker, it’s one of my absolute favorites but that’s why it’s here. It’s once again a shorter anime with only 13 episodes but it somehow manages to combine all of the storylines cohesively, it’s a wild ride full of mystery, murder, and magic that will keep you on board the entire time trying to piece everything together. Also warning it jumps around a lot so make sure to pay attention everything pieces together!.

Based in the 1930’s in the prohibition era you have several stories involving different characters going on but they‘re all connected to one thing the transcontinental train, the flying pussyfoot. Yes that’s actually the name of the train, why, still no idea but all these characters from different walks of life end up here somehow. Now to introduce some of these crazy characters, first off the goofy thieves in love Isaac and Miria, who aren’t the brightest but can steal just about anything. Lad Russo the sadistic hit man who loves to see people die, including fantasizing about killing his fiancé one day. Then you have the ones involved in gangs, all In different ones, but nonetheless involved in some sort of crime. First there’s Firo, the youngest of the Martello family and one of the immortals in the show, then there’s Jacuzzi Splot and his partner Nice, Jacuzzi is a big wimp and crybaby but will protect his loved ones with all he’s got and Nice is a bomb expert and his childhood food. Those are some of the main characters it’s such a large cast it’s hard to name and explain them all. This one is a must watch especially if you liked Durarara, jump on the hype train of this wild show.

5. Black Cat (2005)

Now quick disclaimer before I begin talking about this one, I haven’t watched this in years so it may not hold up as well as I’m remembering but when I watched it I really enjoyed it so that’s why it’s here. This was one of the earlier Anime I watched I’m pretty sure my friend showed me it but it caught my interest from the beginning. It’s not the most groundbreaking show to exist and I’ve heard that the manga is apparently better but that’s for almost every show. It’s got cool action, funny moments and a great cast of characters, plus not gonna lie I had a crush on train when I was younger. its just a fun show and definitely worth giving a watch!

Train Heartnett is an infamous cold blooded assassin who works for the organization Chronos, and because of his lack of empathy for killing he’s named Black Cat. But after a chance encounter with a bou hunter named Saya Minatsuki, they become friends and Train decided he wants to leave Chronos to pursue an honest living as a bounty Hunter. However chronos and particular his fellow member Creed Diskenth are not pleased with this and try to get Train to rejoin Chronos. Along the way Train teams up with fellow bounty hunter on the brink of broke Sven, the bio mech weapon and little girl Eve and master thief and seductress Rinslet Walker. Together they try to escape from Chronos and get enough money for their next .

6. Arakawa Under The Bridge(2010)

Where do I begin with this one first off, this is one of the weirdest Anime I’ve ever seen but just like Azumanga Daioh that’s what make it so good. Beautifully animated by Studio Shaft with some of the most colorful and visually appealing animation I’ve seen, it’s pure eye candy. it’s equally as strange as it is hilarious and it’s just a fun time that’s not meant to be taken seriously. So if you want a good laugh and something thats truly one of a kind in story and characters give this crazy show a shot.

The show begins with one of our main characters Kou Ichinomiya getting stuck by his underwear on a bridge by some kids, he falls into the river and is saved by a mysterious girl. Kou is the son of a wealthy businessman and his life motto is to not be indebted to anyone, so when he’s saved by this girl he asks what he can do. He finds out that her name is Nino and what she wants is to fall in love, so she asks Kou to be her boyfriend. At first Nino seems like a regular girl but she claims to be an alien from Venus and lives in a box under the bridge, not wanting to be in debt Kou agrees and begins living under the bridge with Nino. However Nino isn’t the only one who lives under the bridge there are many other strange characters like hoshi, the aspiring musician who wears a star on his head, and the captain who’s a human in a kappa suit. I highly suggest watching this strange sci-fi romantic comedy for something different and fun to watch.

7. 91 Days (2016)

The newest Anime on this list so far, see I told you it wouldn’t be only old ones!, this is also the darkest Anime on this list so far. This has been highly overlooked since it’s release in 2016, it reminds me of baccano and in parts like death note. If you like mafia movies or just a dark gritty story with some light hearted moments, it s short show but nothing is rushed and it’s solid from front to back and keeps you on the edge of your seat.

Just like Baccano, 91 Days takes place in the prohibition era in a town called Lawless where crime is rampant and illegal alcohol sales are thriving. In this town our protagonist Aviicio‘s family is killed by one of the mafia families, The Vanetti Family. He receives a mysterious anonymous letter telling him to return to lawless to infiltrate The Vanetti Family. He tries to befriend the families son Nero, to find an opportunity for revenge, the story keep you constantly guessing if they’ve truly become friends or if he’ll kill him. Please watch this wonderful mafia crime drama of friend vs foe.

8. Yamada Kun and The Seven Witches (2015)

This is one of the ones that I still really want to read the manga for because I just couldn’t get enough of it! i’m still hoping for a sequel one day! The premise of body swapping has been done many times in Anime and cinema as a whole but this one adds a unique enough of a twist to keep it fresh and interesting. I looked forward to watching this weekly each week meeting a learning about each new witch and learning what power they had.

Ryuu Yamada is a high school delinquent who wants a fresh start at a new school, despite the intention to start with a clean slate he soon falls into old habits of laziness and getting into fights. One day he trips on the stairs which leads to an accidental kiss with fellow student Urarara Shiraishi which causes them to switch bodies. Another student Toranosuke Miyamura learns that they can switch bodies and recruits them to his Supernatural Studies club. There they learn about the other seven witches that all have different powers

9. Arslan Senki (2015-2016)

The second to last of the list comes from the creator of my all time favorite Anime Fullmetal Alchemist, while it’s a very different series and not quite as good as FMA it’s still deserves a spot on this list and deserves your time. It’s hard not to compare it to FMA but it really is it’s own thing, and it actually came out before Fullmetal, it’s a historical drama about war and strategy and a character growing into his potential. Just as Hiromu Arakawa is known for there’s still some comedic moments and some great character development and a well done story, Plus if you like this there’s two seasons so there more to enjoy.

Ok I promise from this point forward I won‘t say anything more about Fullmetal Alchemist this is about Arslan Senki, here’s the story. In the year 320 the Kingdom of Pars is at war with the neighboring kingdom Lusitania. Pars is ruled by the ruthless king Andrangoras III who has a son who’s the complete opposite of him Arslan. Although he doesn’t know how to fight Arslan tries to prove his worth by joining the battle, but things take a turn for the worst when one of the kings officials betrays him. The once prosperous Kingdom of Pars is seized, and since Arslan is the kings son he must flee to avoid capture. So he sets off with his loyal bodyguard Daryun to find allies to help take back the kingdom. Knowing that Arslan is still alive he is still faced with pursuers from other kingdoms and the head of the Lusitania army, a mysterious man with a silver mask who knows a secret that could jeopardize Arslan‘s succession to the throne. Arslan is a gentle, kind person that doesn’t enjoy fighting, he must learn to fight and protect himself and gain the courage to lead an army to regain his home.

10. Shingeki No Bahamut: Genesis (Rage of Bahamut) (2014)

Leaving one of the best for last, not to be confused with the popular series with a similar name Shingeki no Kyojin(Attack on Titan) this show is just as good. One of the first shows from one of my favorite Anime studios, Studio Mappa. I had low expectations when I heard this was a card game adaptation from a new anime studio but I decided to check it out despite that and it was the best decision. This has all the elements of a great anime, the beautiful animation, the unique characters and the compelling story and all the cool action scenes are just a plus. There is a second season too but I’ll leave that for another time, ok time to stop gushing about this wonderful show, time for the story!.

Years and years ago the ancient powerful dragon Bahamut reeked havoc on Mistarcia, a land where gods and demons lived harmoniously with humans. The gods and demons manage to seal away Bahamut with the god key and agree to split it to keep him sealed. Now that the the peace has been restored we meet the main characters and one of my favorites the orange Afro haired bounty hunters Favaro Leone. Favaro is constantly on the run from his adversary and fellow bounty hunter Kaiser Lidfard who‘s main purpose in life is to get revenge on him. One day both of their lives are thrown into chaos when they meet the mysterious girl Amira who holds half of the god key sealing Bahamut and wants help reaching the land of Helheim. I also can’t forget to mention my other favorite character and the fourth member of this unlikely crew Rita the zombie necromancer little girl she is just the definition of cool. Then there’s the characters that want to steal the god key the demon Azazel and the knight Jean D’Arc who are constantly in the characters way but you’ll find out more about them in the show. These unlikely heroes must face the threat of the battle of gods and demons, the pursuers of the god key and incoming threat of Bahamut awakening.

#anime #anime gif #anime blog #blog #art blog #blog post #new blog #azumanga daioh #manga #baccano #91 days #eden of the east #arakawa under the bridge #black cat #yamada kun to 7 nin no majo #R.O.D the tv #r.o.d #digital art

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mymelodyheart · 3 years

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Miles Between Us Chapter 14 ~The Element of Surprise ~

WARNING: VERY EXPLICIT SEXUAL CONTENT

Previously in The Reunion

They fitted perfectly, her softness cradling his boneless heap, making him hard as steel again. Some part of his brain must have still been functioning because he jerked and reached out for her bra to cover her when his doorbell rang. Christ! Forcing his body to move with marginal success, he yanked her up and pulled up his jeans.

Claire slid off the table and grabbed her clothes. "Who could that be?"

"That better not be yer uncle or ..." Jamie trailed off, muttering curses under his breath, annoyed at the disturbance as he was just revving up for part two of their lovemaking. When he opened the door, a sense of deja vu hit him when he saw Mrs Fitz standing there with what seemed like a plate of a lemon meringue pie. What the fuck?

"Mrs Fitz!"

The older woman didn't bother to hide her curiosity this time as her eyes tried to peer past his shoulders. "Heard ye have company, lad, and I havenae seen Miss Claire the last couple of days."

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Six Days Later

Claire's heavy eyelids fluttered open, her brain still addled by sleep. It took her a while to gather her thoughts and remember how she'd made it to bed last night. She shifted slightly in bed, but there's a two-hundred-fifty pound of hard-muscled, naked male restricting her movement. Jamie's arm was draped across her waist, securing her against his chest, her legs confined under his heavier ones. She could feel his soft, steady breathing blowing warm air on top of her head, reminding her how well he'd been sleeping the last few nights. There had been no night terrors or unpleasant dreams interrupting his sleep, and she put it down to his workload during the day and their physical activities between the sheets at night.

Today was Friday, and the realisation caused a huge smile to spread across her face. Last night she'd worked late until past ten, and Jamie had found her fallen asleep in front of her laptop in her studio shed. He'd scooped her up in his arms and helped her get ready for bed, and just before sleep claimed her, he'd whispered he had a surprise for her today.

She wondered what the surprise was and guess it would probably be a long lie-in for them and breakfast in bed. Looking back, the past few days had flown by in a blur, packed with work and catching up with her uncle Lamb during nights. Ever since her emotional reunion with Jamie, her work-related things had gone from a shamble of mess to running smoothly. It's as if the universe had decided to grant her reprieve as everyone went out their way to appease her. Even her boss John seemed to have given her space and was allowing her to work in peace. Somehow, deep down, she had a sneaking suspicion Jamie had something to do with it.

It had all began at the start of the week when Jamie had been at work. Tom had stopped by the cottage to hand her a signed contract agreeing to his book's publication. By the time she'd told John the good news, he'd been in his element detailing his main point plan for getting the word out and announcing the book deal to Tom's adoring followers. She'd thought her boss would demand to get her and Tom on the next plane to London, but instead, John had told her he'd arranged a team to fly to Inverness for a formal meeting with their new author. As if that wasn't enough, two days later, Mary had produced enough drafts for Claire to work on and promised there would be more on the way. Her uncle, sensing work was piling, would occasionally stop by either to whip up something to eat or bring food while she'd been ensconced in her studio shed. Not that it was unusual for her uncle to perform domesticated pursuits; however, it's still surprising that he was going the extra mile to help around the house when he had the Highlands at disposal for his adventures being an outdoor person that he was.

It's becoming clear this week was proving to be a period of many turning points. She had no idea what the future had in store for her and Jamie, but she knew something had shifted in their relationship, and it was definitely for the better. Though she's still the same girl who's still trying to find her place in the world and fit in, she knew she'd changed, too. A few months ago, she would have probably backed down from any forms of conflicts, citing life as complicated enough without adding more complications. But she'd learned how to respond, choose fights that are worth fighting for and cast aside that wasn't deserving of her peace of mind. She'd also learned that once in a while, it's good for her sanity to give propriety and rules the middle finger when a situation called for it.

It's hard to believe she's planning her life in the Highlands, the place where her parents had met and found love in each other. In her quest to get to know them more, she'd spent her holidays here to be closer to their memories and live that adventure they'd so craved. Now, she was involved with a man tormented with demons. If her parents were still alive today, she wondered how they would receive Jamie. Would they have been like Jenny or her uncle, suspicious and sceptical of their relationship? Or would they have been happy with her choice just like Willie, Brian, and Ellen have been with Jamie's?

Deep in her heart, she knew that her parents would have taken one look at them and understood that Jamie was special and meant to be her life adventure. From what Claire had surmised from uncle Lamb's stories, her parents have been that kind of people, magnanimous of spirit and always saw the best in others. Jamie was like that too. He'd taken a gamble with her despite their differences and the geographical challenges ahead. Though it seemed she was helping him with his condition, unbeknownst to Jamie, he too was helping her heal the part of her that became an orphan. In some invisible way, he was repairing something in the fabric of her world that had been torn down the middle when her parents passed away. She absorbed that thought and was reminded of what Uncle Lamb once told her, that her father always had a peculiar sense of humour. With that in mind, she'd like to think that just maybe her father had sent Jamie her way on purpose. His way of telling her to let go of the past, not over-think, embrace the Highlands as much as he had and just love.

Lying next to Jamie in bed, she felt totally at peace. They might have had a crisis of faith, but she was confident they'll find their way through whatever path was laid before them. Their love wasn't and probably never going to be easy, given their journey had been emotional, tangled with roadblocks, denials and self-preservation. Still, she wanted to find her way with him. She'd just discovered this strength she didn't realise she had, and Jamie continued to surprise her with his single-mindedness purpose to be cured. Someone once said there's no fulfilment without a bit of struggle. Just like in the stories she hoped to publish one day, the heroes had to break down first and bleed before earning their happy ending. Well, if that's the rule, she couldn't envision facing life's trials and tests with any other person to stand beside her other than Jamie.

Her smile was still in place when her thoughts were suspended by a rush of heat as Jamie's hand coasted over her hip to disappear between her thighs. A sudden thrill shot through her, making her breath catch in her lungs. He shifted the leg holding her thighs down and deftly opened her to his touch, stroking the sensitive flesh in between. She felt his shaft stir against her bottom as she scooted closer to him, eliciting a guttural sound to escape his lips.

"I can practically hear the cogs turning in yer head, Sassenach," he muttered thickly, his breathing turning shallow at the back of her neck. He nipped her earlobe between his teeth and tugged. "What's going on in that mind of yers?"

"Oh, this and that and how you've been sleeping soundly ...these last few nights." She gasped out loud when he rubbed her nub with a calloused thumb. She tilted her head back to look at his face, and her lips were met by a long-drawn, possessive kiss. By the time their mouths parted, she was panting for air and squirming against him mindlessly.

"Christ, ye're ready for me. Why did ye no' wake me up?" He thrust his finger deep inside her, fondling the spot he knew drove her wild and frantic. "Next time ye want me, wake me up."

"I-I couldn't. You were sleeping so peacefully."

He paused his ministrations. "That's no' the answer I was hoping to hear."

Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ! "Y-yes, next time, I'll wake you up!"

"That's my lass." He sank another finger into her entrance. But as she tried to clench around him, his fingers slid out, using her wetness to coat her nub and gently rub her aching flesh. She wanted to scream at him for teasing her, but he only softly chuckled against her neck. At that moment, she needed to come more than she needed air. She hoarsely whispered his name in a plea for release. "Ach, no' yet, Sassenach ... ye listen better when I'm touching ye." She yelped when he suddenly yanked the covers away and flipped her on her stomach, the crisp morning air caressing her heated skin. "Let me see first that beautiful arse of yers." He shoved a pillow beneath her hips, putting her in a highly arousing position, her face mushed against the mattress and her bottom in the air. "Such a beautiful bum."

"Jamie ..."

He kneaded the curves of her buttocks as he let out a frustrated male groan. "Let us talk first. This is the only time I'm pretty sure ye're no' gonnae argue with me with what I'm about to say. Ye listening?"

"Yes, yes ...get on with it, damn it!"

He laughed out loud just before his lips travelled along the path of her spine, kissing and nibbling her flesh. One hand slid around her belly and down the apex of her thighs, slipping blunt fingers into her folds as his mouth moved to her neck. He lingered there, biting hard and then soothing the sting with a lick of his tongue. Anticipation pulsated within her body, and goosebumps erupted on her skin as the weight of his erection slid against her upturned bottom, and Jamie positioned himself behind her. When he hefted her higher with his forearm, she let out a squeak. "Ye'll no' be working this weekend."

"Jamie," she whimpered. "B-but I can't."

"Oh yes, ye can." Skilled fingers stroke her sensitive nub, and with one thrust of his hips, he completely filled her, taking her by surprise. She nearly screamed, pressing her mouth against the mattress, suddenly mindful of nosey neighbours. She remembered what Jamie had told her about Mrs Fitz and muffled her moans on the covers of the bed.

"Oh, God, this is not fair," she breathed on an uneven exhale.

"I told ye last night, I have a wee surprise for ye. Ye've worked long enough this week. Ye're taking a wee break this weekend." When she didn't respond, he stilled his hips and took out his fingers from inside her. "You need a break, Sassenach. Now, for the love of God, just say yes, Jamie."

When Jamie drew out his hardness and plunged deeply back into her, heart-stopping sensations coursed through her whole body. Something about how he positioned her, the fluid, smooth drives of his movement made her mad with need. She wanted to urge him to go faster, but she clamped her mouth shut. He was deliberately torturing her and forcing her to agree with him. So she decided she was going to get her own back. Contracting her inner walls, she clenched around him. From experience, she knew the more he had to work to push into her, the wilder he would become. Just when she thought she finally got the upper hand, he paused and dropped his weight, stopping just short of squashing her. "No, no, no! Please don't stop!" she wailed.

"Oh, aye." He pushed his lower body tight to her bottom, his erection throbbing inside her. When she tried to wriggle her bum to urge him to start moving again, he firmly gripped her hips in place. "Ah, I ken what ye're up to," he whispered hotly in her ears. "I'm no' taking no for an answer. Ye owe this break to yourself."

"You don't play fair."

"Neither do ye."

Thinking she could compromise later after spending the whole morning with him, she finally conceded. "Fine. Just keep moving, for God's sake!" she hissed.

He let out a pained laugh and pressed his lips on the crook of her neck. "Good lass, ye ken it makes sense." Then cursing under his breath, he moved all the way out in one smooth slide before deliciously gliding deep back. "Christ, I can feel ye want to come, but ye're going to stay with me a little longer. Ye fell asleep on me last night, leaving me with a painful cockstand."

"Jesus, Jamie."

"Aye," he rasped hoarsely into her hair. "I said the same thing when ye wriggled that pert arse against me and fell asleep immediately."

The way his thickness was invading her from an angle almost sent her hurtling over the edge. And it gave her a new appreciation for math. The thought almost made her laughed out loud if it wasn't for the pulsing pleasure between her legs.

"Christ ...look at ye," Jamie gritted, his voice sounding raw and almost severe. "So bloody perfect."

He nudged her legs wider and changed his movements to short, strong strokes, increasing his pace with primitive energy that left her gasping for breath. With the sound of their slapping bodies, the earthy scent of arousal, the sweaty slide of skin, her belly began to tighten and coil.

"I just want to make ye happy, Sassenach," he groaned, bearing down his upper body more, his hips relentlessly pounding into hers. "So just say yes to my wee surprise, aye?"

"Yes, yes, yes." Their voices sounded so far away, and her initial hesitation about taking a break from work almost forgotten. Not entirely, though. She tried to grasp that mental note about emails to be sent, but the hand gripping her hips moved, and fingers slid to rub her nub, stroking and pushing her further towards her peak. She gave in and widened her thighs to let him fill her more. But it left her no time to prepare for the release that shattered her apart, her love for him and the physical pleasure fusing to intensify the sensations blasting through her. It threatened to overwhelm her, but Jamie's presence anchored her as he followed her over, groaning her name, gripping her hips with a fierceness as he claimed her for his.

Moments later, he pulled her boneless body in his arms and tucked her into his chest, tugging the covers over them and curving his front to her back. He held her tightly as the morning light streamed through the windows.

Battling to keep her eyes open, thoughts of work slithered in, but it kept flittering away with her consciousness before she could dwell on it. Maybe just for a minute, she thought. But Jamie smelled so good, and his tender strokes enticed a hazy sleep to claim her muscles, dragging her down into the dark. Just one minute.

As she eased into sleep, his whisper drifted toward her unconscious. "It's still early, Sassenach. Sleep a wee bit more. Your wee surprise will come soon enough."

..........

Claire woke for the second time that morning with an unladylike shriek when the mattress dipped and moved. Muddled, she jackknifed into a sitting position, eyes scanning wildly around the curtain-dimmed room for a trespasser. Claire knew someone was there, her gut instinct telling her it wasn't Jamie. Summoning her eyes to refocus, she collapsed with relief when she realised who it was sat at the foot of the bed.

"Surprise!" Annalise squealed, clapping her hands.

"Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ!" She swiped her bedraggled hair out of her face. "You scared me bloody witless."

"Bloody hell, you're jumpy." Annalise shifted a hip on the bed. "Jamie's bad dreams rubbing off on you now, are they?"

"That's not something to joke about," she glowered at her friend, pulling the covers up to her chin.

Annalise' smile waned a bit. "Hey, what's up? I'm not making fun of Jamie's nightmares, and you know that." Her shoulders slumped. "In case you don't know, bad dreams can happen to anyone. In fact, I had a bad dream a few days ago. I was being chased by a pirate."

Suddenly feeling bad for snapping at her friend, she mentally dispersed the sleep fog in her brain and gave Annalise an apologetic smile. So this was her surprise, she thought. Not that Claire wasn't happy to see her friend, but she'd expected Jamie's surprise to be a romantic weekend with him. She let out a sigh. "Chased by a pirate, huh? Let me guess ...sunken chest and no booty?"

Annalise perked up at Claire's feeble attempt to sound less grumpy. "Har de har har! I didn't realise you could be funny before coffee. A total package for a marauding pirate if I may say so."

"Tell that to Captain Beard," she mumbled, getting out of bed.

"Aye, matey!" Annalise mischievously winked. "That's if he happens to be in Isle of Harris this weekend. Which is where, by the way, we're going, as in, now! So get packing!"

Claire stilled and shook her head. "Wot?" She began to shake her head, tugging the covers around her as she made her way to the dresser. "Oh no, no, no! I'm not leaving this place for any man or woman, including you, blondie! I've got a pile of work to do. You know I have deadlines."

"Oh no, you don't. You stop right there, missy! Have you forgotten you agreed with Jamie to take a weekend break?"

Claire's eyes widened. "Oh, did he also tell you how he got me to agree?"

"No. But you can tell me later on the plane."

"Plane?" Claire dropped her face in her hands. "Oh, God, I can't believe I agreed to this. Jamie never told me anything."

Annalise stood up from where she was sitting and crossed her arms across her chest. "Hmmm, you don't look too happy to be spending time with me."

She puffed out a breath. "It's not that ..."

"We haven't had girly time in ages, Claire. Jamie thought it would do you a world of good to have a bit of fun."

"So now what? You and Jamie plotting and ganging up on me behind my back, is that it?" Claire accused. "What about Willie? Surely, you miss him more than me. When was the last time you saw him?"

Annalise grinned. "Don't worry about Willie. We have been doing a lot of catching up all night last night, and you want to know what he did?"

Claire's face crumpled in disgust as she held up a hand. "Oh, gross! Too much information. I don't want to hear about your sex life."

Annalise laughed out loud. "Fine, I won't discuss our sex life if you start packing now. Besides, you wouldn't want to waste the tickets Jamie worked so hard for, now, do you?"

Oh dear Lord, save me from well-meaning friends! She didn't really want to leave, but if Jamie had spent money organising this trip, she wasn't about to let it go to waste. But ... "How about uncle Lamb? He came to see me, and I can't just leave him."

"He knows all about the trip, and I've been told he's got a few excursions planned around the Highlands."

"Oh, well ...if that's the case, I need to call Mary and John and let them know what I'm up to this weekend."

Annalise grinned. "Jamie's sorted it already."

"Wot?" she exclaimed with disbelief, her hands landing onto her hips. "Jamie's been planning this with you all along, hasn't he?" She shook her head. "I-I can't believe it!"

"You better believe it."

Claire blew out a breath of exasperation. "Fine! Grab my suitcase. It's in the airing cupboard."

"Yay!" Annalise whirled on her feet and pumped her fist in the air. Claire couldn't help but smile as enthusiasm began to wiggle its way through her system. Maybe Jamie was right. She owed it to herself to have a break, and probably a change of scenery was what she needed. After Mary had delivered the goods, Claire had worked herself to the bone all week and sometimes into the wee hours of the morning. She was already in her second round of edits on the extensive manuscripts Mary had submitted and must admit they were indeed making progress. As for Tom, her job with him was done, and the team organised by John should be arriving next week. It was definitely time for a bit of fun.

On second thoughts, though it was generous of Jamie to arrange the trip, it would have been nice if he could come along too. But the idea of Jamie's condition worsening with something as simple as weekend trips away brought a feeling of melancholy to descend upon her. She had no doubt Jamie would be cured, and they'd be able to travel together one day, so she forced herself to shake off the momentary bout of wistfulness when Annalise came bounding back with her small suitcase.

"So ...you talked to Jamie. Where is he, by the way?" she asked, grabbing clothes from the dresser and throwing them in the bed. "He left early this morning."

"Oh! Jamie said he needed to be somewhere important, and he'll see you when we return. Willie will be driving us to the airport." When Claire frowned, Annalise came up behind her and laid a hand on her shoulder. "Hey, we'll only be away for two days, and you'll see him again Sunday night."

It was apparent to Claire she'd been at a disadvantage waking up to the news of the weekend trip because if Jamie had suggested it a few days ago, she would have definitely put her foot down and refused. Unfortunately, Annalise and Jamie knew her too well; hence they'd planned this trip in secrecy.

Claire absorbed that for a few heartbeats and felt a tad of guilt. It had been a while she'd spent time with Annalise, and once her job was done in London, she'd be living with Jamie. Plus, who knew when she'd have another chance to hang out with her best friend ...just the two of them and in the Isle of Harris at that. Besides, they always had a great time together. There was no sense in spoiling their spontaneous weekend with her stubbornness. She might as well make the most of it.

Claire turned to face her friend and smiled. "Do I have time to shower?"

"Plenty of time," Annalise beamed. "While you get ready, I'll make some coffee. I know what you're like without your cuppa first thing." And with that, she danced out of the room, whistling, leaving Claire to shake her head in amusement.

Later that morning, as they drove past the motorway exit for the airport, Claire shifted restlessly in the backseat of Willie's car, watching the familiar structure pass by in a blur outside her window. She frowned. Willie must have forgotten to take the turn. Uh oh! But before she could say anything, Willie veered to a different dual-carriageway. She tried to relax back into her seat, thinking there was probably a different route to the airport she didn't know of.

Eventually, they pulled to a stop in front of a building that didn't resemble a terminal, but there was an airfield and a charter plane coming out of the hangar. When Willie stepped out of the car, a man with worn jeans, a black leather jacket and a pair of aviators waved. He looked kind of familiar, but Claire was unsure.

"Who is that?" Claire asked quietly.

Annalise followed her line of vision. "Oh, I thought you knew that guy." She frowned when Claire shook her head and squinted to get a better look. "I was told the guy flying our plane was the soon to be famous Highlands' ultimate guide to Scotland." As if on cue, the man removed his aviators and started walking towards their car, a smile plastered to his unshaven face. When he waved at them, Annalise giggled, and Claire's eyes widened in confusion. "You probably can't recognise him from afar ...it's your author, Tom Christie," Annalise announced with a satisfied smile and to her utmost shock. "He's flying us to Stornoway."

What the bloody hell? Jamie arranged this?

Dear Readers,

Thank you all for your readership and the feedback from the previous chapter. I'm super thrilled a lot of you enjoyed it after what I put you all through with Jamie and Claire's roller-coaster journey. I hope it was worth it all in the end.

Speaking of the end, the next chapter will be the last for this arc, and after taking a break, I will start arc three of the WONDERWALL series. I'll keep you updated here. Meanwhile, feel free to speculate what the next chapter will be. Until my next update, wishing you all good health and vibes. X

#melodyheart #wonderwall #milesbetweenus #claire beauchamp/jamie fraser #jamie fraser #claire beauchamp #outlanderfanfic

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scapegrace74-blog · 3 years

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Wolf Like Me

A/N So there I was, all ready to keep working on my new historical AU, when Metric Jamie and Claire barged into my brain and started making demands. I’d been neglecting them, they said. I hardly ever let them indulge in smut, they said. I could only go back to writing the AU once I gave them their due. The things I do for these two loons, man...

The title song is by TV on the Radio and doesn’t have much to do with the subject matter, except for one line which has always made me... *pulls at imaginary collar*

The entire Metric Universe, now chronologically ordered, can be found here. I’m placing this new installment between Ceremonies and Lazy Dancer, so sometime during the first month or so of their physical relationship.

The light filtering into their compact kitchen was diffuse, watery and dull as the weather outside. He went through the motions of preparing coffee, despite the fact he wasn’t working until later in the afternoon. By all rights, he should be sound asleep. His aching body had lifted him from the shoals of sleep and his weighty thoughts had kept him grounded there.

Carrying his mug and a reheated meat pasty over to the sofa, he lowered himself gingerly to the cushions. He had been ridden hard and put away wet, he mused. On the surface, this wasn’t a disagreeable state, but very little about his budding relationship with Claire could be safely interpreted on its surface.

As though summoned by his thoughts, his one-time roommate and seemingly voracious lover emerged from his room and padded down the hallway to the bathroom. She looked like a cross between an albino gazelle and a harried hedgehog. Even in his current mood, he couldn’t help but smile fondly. His love for this woman was monumental, rooted deep in his soul and reaching out to span the horizons of his life. He only had to find a way to keep it, and her, from killing him. Piece of cake.

Frazzled hair now somewhat tamed, Claire settled gracefully next to him with her own coffee, near-translucent eyelids lowering in bliss as she took her first sip. He wondered if she could sense to waves of tension that emanated from his skin like heat from a sunbaked street.

“So,” she murmured at last, “last night was pretty wild, huh?”

Right topic, wrong interpretation. Still, she had brought it up, and that was the best opening he could hope for.

“Mmhmm,” he replied non-committedly.

“I thought I might have to hook you up to a saline I.V. there at the end. What was that, four times?” She grinned slyly at him from over the rim of her mug.

“Three,” he corrected, although he couldn’t fault her observations. His balls were still tender.

Finally reading his mood, Claire placed her mug down deliberately on the table. She turned to face him, eyes narrowed in scrutiny.

“Don’t overdo the accolades on my account. Jesus, Jamie, you’d think I ruined your favourite rugby jersey, not rocked your world in bed. Are you mad about the handcuffs?”

Despite everything, his cock twitched in his shorts at Claire’s mention of last night’s foray into light bondage: his, not hers. While not a kink he’d explored before, his reaction has been far from disinterested. No, he wasn’t mad about the handcuffs.

“Ye seem verra keen tae discuss my opinion o’ last night, Sassenach. What I’d like tae ken is did ye like it?”

Spluttering, Claire ran her hands nervously through her hair. He watched her carefully as she tried to navigate towards an acceptable answer. It was a delicate operation he was undertaking. He would need all of Claire’s surgical dexterity to broach the topic without cutting through the tender tissue of her perfectionism.

“What a ridiculous question, Jamie!” she finally said. “I’m pretty certain our neighbours needed a cigarette by the time I was done.” Collecting her still half-full mug, she made to rise. He held her in place with a palm across her thigh. Beneath his touch, her muscles were twitching.

“Aye, but were ye?”

“Was I wot?” Her eyes were fixed on the kitchen, as though longing for escape.

“Were ye done?” He spoke slowly, softly, tiptoeing into a minefield.

“Jamie...” she chuckled nervously.

“I want tae say somethin’ to ye, Sassenach, and I dinna want ye tae take it fer criticism...”

“Jamie,” she repeated, this time in a warning tone.

“Nah, ye need tae hear this, Claire. I love ye, as ye ken well. I love everything about ye, even the annoying bits. An’ because I love ye, nothing makes me happier than tae see ye well pleased and tae ken twas I who brought ye that pleasure. Do ye understand my meaning?”

Enormously wet eyes stared at him, a furrow between her arched brows as though she was working through a riddle. At last, she nodded in acknowledgement.

“I’m no’ daft, Claire, nor am I sae blinded by lust that I canna see that ofttimes, when we lie t’gether, yer enthusiasm can be a wee bit.... what’s the word? The one the Millennials throw about when a thing is designed for somebody else’s consumption?”

“Performative,” said in a bleak voice.

“Aye, performative. And while it’s a dream come true tae bed you, t’would be a million times better if I kent ye were taking yer bliss for yerself, an’ no’ giving it tae me like some sort of gift ye dinna deserve.”

He paused, trying to read whether his words had found their mark or if she was about to pack her bags and tell him to go to hell. He wasn’t exaggerating. Sex with Claire was infinitely better than any other sex in his life. And while he didn’t have some vast experience of women, he’d been with enough to know when Claire’s enthusiasm was feigned. She wanted him, of that he was certain, but she’d never learned to take. It would be the rarest privilege to be the one to show her, if only she would let him in. He could teach her tricks that would blow her mind.

***

“I feel foolish.”

“Whatever for, mo nighean donn?”

They were lying in his rumpled sheets, still fragrant with the previous night’s debauchery. Rather than tear him a new asshole for his audacity, to his everlasting surprise Claire had crumpled into his side with a breathy sob. He had carried her back to his room like a bridegroom. There, with tender lips and winnowing fingers, he had eased her into a rare moment of emotional vulnerability.

“I’m studying to be a doctor, for Christ’s sake. And I’m hardly a blushing virgin...”

He gritted his teeth, trying to avoid thinking of the selfish men that came before him. They weren’t here now, holding this fierce but complicated woman in their arms, her maple eyes and molasses hair spilling all over him. He wasn’t her first lover, but god willing, he would be her last.

“Ye’re a giver, Sassenach. It’s who ye are, down to yer core. Tis hardly yer fault ye were never taught that pleasure is the gift that gives.”

“Will you? Teach me?”

A shiver ran the length of his spine, lighting his nerves like sparklers. Even after the night they’d just spent, blood flooded to his cock like a bruise. He’d have to be dead to not rouse at such a request from this woman.

“Aye, mo ghradh. It would be my pleasure.” And he meant it.

Rather than immediately strip naked, they spent a good deal of time kissing and petting, their clothed hips settling into an easy grind. Everywhere he sampled, she was sweet and salty, sour and bitter, a smorgasbord for his tongue and his mind. It was this variety, this seemingly endless combination of textures and moods, that captivated him. He was certain he would never tire of her.

As things grew more heated, Claire tried to roll him on top of her, but he resisted.

“No, a nighean. Like this.” He pulled her on top of him until the bulge in his underwear lined up with the furrow in hers.

“Jamie!” she laughed, pulling her hair back from her eyes.

“Makes me feel like a randy lad of fifteen all over again,” he teased. “Ye make me sae hard, Claire.”

She gasped, and he watched in fascination as her pelvis shifted from a steady rock to a deliberate, searching circle. There was a distinct stain of moisture on the pale blue fabric of her knickers, but he couldn’t say if it came from him or her. Both of them, most likely.

“Sae hard,” he continued in a low murmur that shook with restraint, “tae see ye take what ye need from me.”

A high pitched whine indicated his partner was growing frustrated by the ongoing torture of their almost-contact.

“Please, Jamie,” she begged.

“What is it ye want, Sassenach?”

A flash of spitfire defiance met his teasing question.

“Your cock.” The click and suck of her pretty mouth spilling such filth was nearly his undoing. Perhaps it was for the best that she’d nearly drained him dry only eight hours before.

“Then ye better take it, aye?”

Faster than he could have imagined, Claire dragged his boxer-briefs down past his ankles and shed her own knickers. With the sigh of a nomad reaching an oasis in the desert, she sunk down on his length in a single, long draught. She was so wet it oozed down to where his balls where already drawn up tight against his base. Clenching his eyes tight, he counted slowly to ten.

“Now what?” she breathed, seemingly as stunned as he felt.

“Now ye move until ye find the place where it all clicks,” he offered with a flex of his groin.

“What about you?”

“Christ, Sassenach, can ye not feel me throbbing like a bloody split lip inside of ye? Don’t spare a thought for me. This is for you.”

She let out a curious hum and twisted her hips this way and that, rolling him against her inner musculature. A slight arch of her fluted spine. A counter-clockwise roll. A series of rhythmic pulses, and then she found exactly what she was looking for.

“Oh.” It was the exclamation of a prophet, having glimpsed the divine. That of a pilgrim, having reached the mountain top. It wasn’t like him to mingle the sacred and the profane, but the look on Claire’s face was nothing short of holy rapture.

“That’s it,” he encouraged, clawing at the bed clothing to avoid grabbing her and pounding to his own rhythm.

“Oh! Jamie. Oh!”

“Tell me, Claire. Tell me,” he begged, desperate for something, anything, to hold onto on the sheer cliff of madness that suddenly yawned before him.

“I’m... I’m fucking you, Jamie,” she whispered, like it was a secret kept in a locked diary.

“Aye, ye are, a nighean. Dinna stop. Dinna stop, Claire.”

Wispy noises and half-formed words began to slip from her mouth. These weren’t the orchestrated moans and cries of the night before, and they aroused him a hundredfold more. If he had to guess, she wasn’t even aware she was making them.

“Can’t...” she breathed after endless moments, neck straining as she titled her chin skywards, slim hands coming to rest on his chest.

“Aye, ye can,” he urged, though he doubted she heard him.

What only minutes before had looked like budding ecstasy was quickly turning to frustration as her head began to thrash from side to side, whipping her hair across her cheeks.

“Can’tcan’tcan’t,” she chanted almost to herself.

She was teetering on the knife edge between heaven and hell, that much was clear. Half mad with agonized bliss himself, he sought frantically through the atlas of her labyrinthine mind, searching up dark hallways and around blind corners for an answer that would help release her from her self-made snare.

“Take what ye need, Claire,” he panted, offering himself up to be consumed. Then, gambling boldly, he added “Be a good girl an’ take it.”

He knew she’d heard him by her sudden stillness. He held his breath. There was a tremor that started where he was buried inside of her and spread across her surface like wind across a pond, given voice as a rapturous sigh when it reached her face.

She began to move again, a pinched look of determination on her beatific face. A set of dainty fingers sank to where their flesh met, so wet that it burned, bursting full and yet cavernously empty, begging to be drowned. He couldn’t look away, curling up on his spine for a better view, slack-jawed and mesmerized by her practiced movements.

“I’m... I’m... oh my god, Jamie, I’m going to...”

He couldn’t have stopped himself then for all the money in the world. Teeth set, eyes fixed on nothingness, he spun away from gravity just as she let out an otherworldly howl and bore down on him like a wolf ravishing a lamb. Lava rushed down his veins and through his cock in bolts of heat, the whipcrack of release shimmering like electricity across his skin.

Claire folded down over his chest, her arms crossed over her head like she waiting for a bomb to drop from the sky. She still rode him languidly, wrenching ever last drop of pleasure he had to give. Her shoulders shook in some strange cocktail of gasping, laughing and sobbing. At long last, she was still. She had yet to meet his eyes, and he felt unaccountably nervous.

Pushing strands of hair away from where they had stuck to her face, she rested her chin in her stacked hands. Her face was equal parts awestruck and adoring, and he allowed his tense muscles to relax. Seemingly at a loss for words, she placed a lingering kiss on his sternum and rested her cheek once again on her hands, exhaling deeply.

“Sassenach?” he asked, once his breathing was once again under his control.

“Hmmm?”

“I ken ye were only kidding about the I.V., but...”

#my writing #outlander

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mrsfrecklesmarauders · 3 years

Text

James Potter Supremacy

“James Potter is a bully toe rag. He was a bad person”

“Peter followed him around like a puppy. James treated him like shit, that’s why Peter betrayed him”

James yawned laying back on the chair. He couldn’t study anymore. He was done.

“Alright, Wormy. We need to sleep a bit to be bright and fresh tomorrow”

James looked at Peter. He seemed pale, tired, stressed nearly about to cry.

“Go ahead, James. I’m gonna stay for a little while”

“Mate, you need to rest. We’ve been in The Library all the bloody afternoon”

Peter shook his head, staring at his book.

“Come on, I’m pretty sure Pads and Moony are done shagging by now” he laughed a bit at his own joke.

But Peter didn’t laugh.

“That’s my point” Peter sniffed “We’ve been here the whole bloody afternoon and nothing seems get into my brain….” Peter was pulling his hair “I’m so stupid”

“You’re not stupid”

“I’m probably gonna fail. You guys are gonna get tops marks in everything and I might have to repeat the whole year again”

“Hey, hey…” James said facing his friend “Don’t discourage yourself Pete. You’re very intelligent”

Peter snorted.

“Yeah you are” James said “You’ve done incredible pranks with us…”

“None of them were my ideas…”

“What about the time we changed gravity in The Great Hall?”

“Moony’s idea”

“You turned into you know what, for Moony’s you know what furry little problem”

James turned around to see if someone was around, luckily no.

“I had your help”

Shit. Peter was so negative and down. James knew perfectly well that to cheer Pete up, they had to preach him, tell him he was doing things right. James tried to do that all the time. But there were times when Peter just didn’t believe him. That nothing could make him cheerful again.

“Okay” James said opening his own book “Page one hundred and forty what was it?”

“Forty-two”

James opened the page.

“Conjuration. Let me guide you up” James said

“I thought you were tired…”

“I’m gonna revise again, this test is gonna be difficult you’re right”

It would be easy piecey. Minnie usually asked a few questions and then they were supposed to write a little essay on the topic of their choice.

“But…”

“I made this helpful summary, I’m gonna read it. You should write this down”

Peter looked at James, then he smiled.

“You’re an imbecile”

“Don’t need to insult me Wormy, I’m bloody studying…”

“You…”

“Shh”

And James began reading. He didn’t have a summary but he tried to explain the subject as easy as possible.

Peter nodded and scribbled things on his parchment.

After a few hours. James pretended to study again. Actually, he was reading the same line over and over again. He already knew this stuff. And he was so bloody tired. But Peter seemed to be concentrating more, he muttered things to himself as he wrote them down. James smiled.

I knew you could do it, Pete.

Finally, both boys were kicked out if The Library by Madame Pince.

As they headed back to The Gryffindor Tower. Peter seemed to be relaxed. Cheeks flustered and a little smirk on his face.

James’ heart warmed up.

“Wow, thank you Pete. I needed that revision. I had so many things wrong”

He didn’t want Peter to think he had made James stay with him for nothing.

“Cheers James. You’re a good friend”

James smiled as he rubbed his friend’s hair.

“Come on, I deserve a kiss”

“What?”

“Just a little peek on the cheek, come one” James joked as he pointed to his cheek.

“No way”

“You said I was a good friend”

“Keep dreaming…” Pete rolled his eyes and walked away.

“Oi! Pettigrew! Just give in to my sweet face and give me a kiss”

“Shut up Potter” Peter laughed

“You shut up” James laughed as well

“Remus just stands James for what he did for him. But James was a bully. Remus should’ve stopped being friends with someone like that”

“Where’s Sirius?”

Remus asked as James approached him after Charms.

“With another girl” James rolled his eyes.

Moony’s face went down adopting a sad expression. It had happened before, when James mentioned Sirius’ girlfriends. James knew something was happening. James was no stupid. He knew his boys pretty well.

“And Pete?”

“Chess club”

Remus just nodded.

“It’s just you and me handsome” James winked.

Remus smiled a little.

“Why are you so gloomy to spend an evening with me? Am I that horrible?”

“Yes, James. You’re a nightmare” Remus said smiling

“Oi!”

“As long as you don’t talk about Quidditch, or Lily…”

“Bloody tosser”

James and Remus had dinner together.

“Did you notice how pretty Evans looks?”

James couldn’t avoid noticing her hair was longer, with soft curls all over it. Pretty.

“Why did I say about the Lily talk?”

“Fucking twat”

Remus laughed as he chewed.

James noticed he looked kind of sick and pale.

“Do you want my chocolate tart?” he asked “I think I’m full”

Remus beamed at that “Yes, please”

James smiled as he passed him the dessert.

Good Moony, eat up. You look miserable.

Sirius entered The Great Hall. His hair was a mess and his shirt slightly opened. Cheeks kind of red. Fucking wanker.

“Hello lads” he sat down serving himself some Pumpkin juice.

“I’m guessing you already ate, Padfoot” James commented

Sirius smirked.

James noticed Remus flinched beside him. He looked pissed.

“I have to say it, Ravenclaws might be studious and all, but they definitely know what they are doing” he winked.

James hated when Sirius behaved like this. He was an imbecile, playing to be cool and a fuckboy.

“You’re a wanker”

Sirius laughed.

“I’m glad you had fun, Padfoot” Remus said sarcastically.

“Don’t worry, Moony. I’m all yours now…”

“You know what? I was fine without you. Enjoying my tart, and you needed to come and ruin it”

“Lads…” James said

“Wow… Someone is not in a good mood. I thought the full moon wasn’t until next week…”

“FUCK YOU SIRIUS”

“Rem…”

“What am I doing? I just came here to share dinner with my friends, and you started insulting me”

“Then go! Bloody go with your new sweetheart or whatever…”

“Prongs…” Sirius complained

James raised his shoulders “I don’t know what’s going on…”

“You know what? I might go with Pru and have dinner with her…”

“I’m not stopping you!”

“You’re such a tosser Moony…”

“Thank you very much…”

“I can’t believe you’re on his side, James”

“I’m not in anybody’s side”

Sirius rolled his eyes and left furiously.

“Sirius…” James called after him.

But Sirius ignored him.

James raised an eyebrow to Remus.

“What was that all about?”

“I’m sick of him bragging about girls”

“Moony…”

“I’m not longer hungry” he stood up “I’m gonna go to the dorm”

“I’m coming with you”

As they were walking back, Remus stopped. And he leaned on the wall with pain.

“What is it Remus?”

“I’m fine.”

“Remus…”

“My hip hurts a bit”

“Let’s go The Hospital Wing”

“James, it’s nothing…”

“Don’t be stupid, Remus”

James hated when Remus didn’t take care of himself. He was clearly in pain, and he didn’t want to do anything about it.

“Remus…”

“Jus’ take me to the dorm, James”

James let Remus leaned on him as he placed his arm around him.

“This is ridiculous”

“Shut up, Lupin. You should be pleased you’re in this position with me. Anyone would kill to be on your shoes”

Remus laughed “Tosser”

James was smiling now. He loved making his friends happy.

“I’m still worried though”

“I’m okay…”

James didn’t insist. They got to their dorm and James helped Remus lay down in bed. James made Remus swallow a relaxing potion his mum had given him in case of any stress. Remus needed to sleep for a bit. Remus must’ve known what it was because he didn’t complain.

“Cheers”

“Are you sure you don’t want me to…”

“I’m fine, really” Remus smiled

“Moony…”

“Prongs…”

James sat down on Remus’ bed. He rubbed his friend’s hair gently.

“Sirius will stop seeing all those girls” he said “He’s gonna come back to us”

To you.

James saw Remus closing his eyes, the potion was taking effect now.

“You’re a good friend, Prongs” Remus said before drifting to sleep.

“James and Sirius were a pair of stupid boys who didn’t give a shit about anyone. Popular rich boys in a good position to bully others”

James waited for Sirius to come back. The letter he had received from his parents this morning must’ve been bad, because after that, Sirius disappeared all day. Remus seemed to be bloody worried, he had insisted on coming with James, but he didn’t let him. He had instructed Pete to take care of him. Remus needed to rest. The full moon had been the day before.

James considered having a smoke while he waited. But he thought better of it, he didn’t know how. And he didn’t want to go back and ask Remus for one.

Finally, James saw the figure of Sirius coming to the castle.

“Where were you?”

Sirius’ eyes looked puffed. He had been crying.

“Having a romantic moonlight walk by myself” Sirius laughed “You didn’t have to wait for me, Prongs”

Sirius wanted to walk by but James stopped him.

“Just stop with this, Pads”

“With what?”

“You can fool anyone in the world. Not me”

Sirius snorted “I don’t know what you’re talking about”

James was getting impatient.

“I’m very offended, Pads”

Sirius raised an eyebrow.

“I don’t think I ever did or said anything to make you believe that you have behave like this idiot fuckboy who doesn’t give a shit about anything or anyone…”

Sirius looked hurt “I…”

“Why are you behaving like this around me?”

“Prongs…”

“I KNOW YOU CARE, PADFOOT”

James didn’t mean to yell but he didn’t know what else to do. Sirius jumped.

“I know you care about your parents and it affects you whatever they say on those letters… I know you miss Regulus that you love him despite all….”

Sirius looked down.

“I know you don’t give a shit about any of those girls… You know? You’re hurting Moony…”

Sirius looked up at that. His eyes were glittery. He was biting his inner lip to avoid crying. James knew him too well.

“I didn’t mean to”

“Sirius you’re not made of stone. You’re allowed to feel”

Sirius shook his head.

“You…you don’t understand…”

“I do…”

“I have… I have expectations… Everyone is looking at me…”

“Fuck what they think…”

“I’m so…I’m so scared” Sirius had tears on his eyes.

“Pads… I’m your best friend. I don’t care if you break down…”

Sirius kept shaking his head.

“Sirius…” James said more softly “Come here…” he opened his arms.

“I…”

“Come here”

James hugged Sirius. His friend seemed to be tense between his arms.

“It’s okay to cry, Sirius. I’m not gonna judge”

“James…” Sirius whispered before bursting into tears.

“It’s okay Pads. I’m here” James whispered “I’m always gonna be here”

Sirius sobbed even more on his shoulder. Letting out everything he had been accumulating.

Later, as they approached the Portrait Hall, Sirius stopped James.

“Why would do without you James?”

James smiled.

“I honestly don’t bloody know. I take you ass out of the worst situations”

Sirius laughed.

“I do care about Moony” he said looking down, and kind of blushing? “I never intended to hurt him. He is one of my best friends…”

“But not your best friend, right? That’s me”

Sirius smiled “That’s you”

James smiled back “You should tell him then. Just fix things with Moony…”

Sirius nodded.

James entered the Common Room, climbing up to their dorm. Sirius followed. Before James opened the door, he turned to look at Sirius, he smiled and winked, letting him know everything was okay. And back to normal.

Then James opened the door.

“Hello boys…. Who fancies having his ass beaten by me in an Exploding Snap Game?”

“Lily should never have chosen James. He was a bully who molested her best friend and couldn’t take a no for an answer”

James didn’t particularly like Petunia. And he knew she hated him. And then it was Vernon, Petunia’s fiancé. James seemed to irritate Vernon with only his mere presence. He was eyeing at James with such furry and disgust, and he wasn’t even trying to be discreet. James felt uncomfortable.

Petunia was talking about their apparent perfect life. They had bought a new muggle car, that seemed to be a thrill for muggles. Vernon had been promoted on his job; James didn’t know what he did. He had explained but James didn’t seem to understand, it sounded boring. They were talking about the preparations for their upcoming wedding.

Lily seemed tensed. She had tried to comment and congratulate her sister. But that bitch shut her up. James was about to take his wand out and jink the shit out her. But he didn’t want to look like a mental on Lily’s house. And they were all muggles. James had to behave like a gentleman.

Lily’s hand moved nervously under the table. James took it on his own. Lily finally looked at him. James smiled. Lily smiled back grateful to have him here.

After dinner, James thanked Mr. and Mrs. Evans over and over again for the delicious dinner. Mr. Evans was nice. Mrs. Evans seemed to be a bit awkward around him. Lily had told him she acted like that around everyone magical.

The Evans started to be very busy with Petunia’s wedding. Her and her mother discussed about dresses and other stuff. They talked about decoration, food, music all that. As if James didn’t know some spells to prepare a ceremony in seconds. Poor muggles, James loved having magic.

Lily seemed sad, she felt out of place as she watched her family discuss those things.

“James, can we go somewhere else?” pleaded

“Of course”

James took Lily’s hand and dragged her to the kitchen. They needed to hide from the muggles to be able to apparate.

“Where do want to go?”

“Anywhere but here” Lily said with tears in her eyes.

James wiped them up gently, before apparating. James took Lily to The Potter’s beach house. It was the only place he could think of. It was his happy place. He had so many memories there. As soon as they got there, Lily began pacing.

She snorted

“They have the nerve… They just keep celebrating and being happy about Petunia and her wedding… And they don’t have any idea of what a horrible world we are living in”

James knew what she was talking about. The war. James and Lily had decided to join Dumbledore’s Order after graduation and fight.

“I have explained it to them… I really have. What I would do” Lily continued “And they just don’t understand. They don’t seem to care actually”

“Hey, Lils…”

“I mean until they don’t see something on the telly they won’t believe it, but there won’t be something on the telly… Fuck…”

“Lils…”

“And Petunia is now the golden girl because she is going to get married.... Since when getting married is better than giving up your life to fight for something good…”

“Lily…” James had reached her. He made her stop and look at him.

“And I’m doing this for them! James! I’m fighting for them!”

James smiled, stroking her hair.

“You need to yell”

“What?”

“You need to let it all out”

“I don’t…” Lily snorted

“Let me show you”

James took out his wand and performed a silent charm on the house.

“Now you can yell all you want without no one bothering you”

“I’m not gonna do that” Lily smiled

“Why not? You’re gonna feel better, trust me”

“James…” Lily bit her lip

“Like this… Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah”

James yelled. Lily laughed at him.

“Your turn”

Lily shook her head. She was smiling behind her sweater sleeve.

“Come on, babe. Trust me”

Lily took a deep breath before yelling.

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”

James laughed amused at his girlfriend.

“FUCK YOU PETUNIA!! FUCK YOU SNAPE!! FUCK EVERYONE!”

“FUCK EVERYONE!”

“FUCK EVERYOOOOONEEEEEE!!”

They both laughed. Then James pulled Lily towards him.

“Fuck everyone but you” she whispered now

James kissed her.

“I’m so in love with you Lily”

Lily smiled so beautifully that James’ heart jumped on his chest.

“How long that spell lasts?” she asked

“An hour or so, why?”

Lily blushed “Perfect. Let see if you make good silencing charms”

James’ face was on fire, he was sure he was bright red.

Lily laughed. And then she kissed him so fiercely, like she never had done before.

James heart was jumping on his chest. He was so in love with Lily that sometimes it scared him.

Lily began unbuttoning James’ shirt. He took it off.

Oh, bloody hell. He had had sex before but not with Lily. He was bloody nervous. What if fucked it up? James found himself breathing nervously and shaking for some reason.

Lily took off her sweater and dress. And she stood there only on her underwear. Lily smiled embarrassed.

“Oh shit…”

James sighed because he had no other words to say. But before he could say anything else, Lily kissed him again.

They laid on the nearest couch. James on top of her. He was still shaking, like a tosser. Why did this happen to him? He was supposed to be confident. But James was nervous, he really didn’t want to fuck it up.

Lily didn’t seem to notice. She seemed to confident and sexy, even though James knew it was her first time.

She smiled stroking James’ cheek. They stared into each other’s eyes.

“Are you sure about this, Lils?”

James was surprised on how shaken his voice sounded.

“I’ve never been so sure about anything in my life” she said “I love you, James”

James was out of breath for a second.

“I love you too”

And James proceeded to kiss Lily’s lips, then Lily’s neck and breasts… He needed to warm up his body to avoid shaking.

“Oh James…” Lily sighed as he kissed her body.

This would be one of the most precious moments in James’ life. He was completely in love.

#harry potter #Marauders #maraudersera #James Potter #Sirius Black #Remus Lupin #peter pettigrew #Lily Evans #jily #james potter supremacy #marauders fanfiction

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jlsadphoenix · 3 years

Text

a map and a shovel (to my achilles’ heel)

The evolution of Emma and Killian’s thoughts for each other, told through the early events of their lives together. | 1/2 | AO3

EMMA

KILLIAN

because she took his hand and painted a future in brilliant colours, colours beyond the red of blood and vengeance he had lost himself in for centuries.

completely and utterly — he’d say hopelessly, except nothing gives him more hope than Emma Swan

Tagging: @teamhook @lillpon @ownedbycaptainswan @inwordsthatnobodyknows1121

“Hey! Hey, there’s someone under there!”

And hands are pulling him free from the pile of bodies he’d crawled under. Keeping his frightened mask on, Killian briefly glances about at his ‘saviors’, falling last on the beautiful blonde in unfamiliar clothes peering down at him with confusion and suspicion.

He could work with that.

Later he’s sitting at the table, telling his false tale. It’s played to perfection, Killian thinks to himself with pleasure. The right amount of faltering and trembling. The four women are eating it up, the concern, the sympathetic smile the blonde shoots him as his voice trembles, it was all I could do to survive, before she disappears behind him. Everything’s going right, and Killian is starting to relax. The other women are starting to relax, too, and he’s leaping at the first opportunity to present itself — I can guide you—

Then someone grabs his hair, jerking his head back and presses a knife to his throat.

Well shit, he thought wildly, now what?

Then Killian is tied up to a tree.

How the fuck did this happen?

He’s holding onto his ruse as best he can, I’m just a blacksmith, desperate and pleading. The others seem doubtful of tying him up, but the blonde stands firm.

And then she’s whistling sharply, bringing the ogres’ attention to them. And then she’s walking away.

She can’t be serious, can she?

She can.

Dammit.

“Good for you!” is called out with equal parts irritation and grudging respect. Killian will speak to her. Lies will not work so he’ll bargain. So he focuses on her, clearly the leader, the one to watch out for, and offers her his services, genuine this time, I’ll help you obtain it before she does, and she puts a knife to his throat once again in response.

That respect for this woman who’s seen through his ruse within mere moments, tied him to a tree, and put a knife to his throat twice is growing, so he responds with the honesty she deserves and quite honestly, has won. He stares dead into her eyes, unblinking, face clear of deception.

“To exact revenge on the man who took my hand— Rumplestiltskin.”

Well, the important things he can keep to himself, now.

Killian’s growing impatient.

He’s never been good with waiting, really. This was one of the first lessons he had learned in servitude — the wait in between each lash was worse than the pain itself, and that impatience had carried on to almost everything else.

And yet the four continued to argue on as time ran, as the sun moved, as the giant was doing who knows what, as Cora likely grew closer to coming suspicious.

Their voices raised, and his ears perk up as Emma mentions a Henry, and, soon they seem to quiet down.

Oh, please be her.

She and the warrior (Mulan, was it?) shuffles off to the side, and they speak in low tones, exchanging a bag, and continue to speak quietly, a grim look on Emma’s face.

Finally, his patience runs out, and he calls out to them, barely keeping the irritation in check, “Ladies, in this world we are slaves to time; in other words, tik-tok.”

They all share brief glances, and, please please be her, he has to know more about this woman who managed to best him, who has the look of a Lost One in her eyes, who is desperate to return to — not home, no, but this Henry. Her boy, most likely (and he can’t help the way his thoughts drift briefly over to another who wanted desperately to be reunited with her lad), and he tries to hide his pleased expression as she moves to him.

He’s sure he fails spectacularly, so continuing in the spirit of honesty with her — not like there’s any point to lying to her, anyhow — he reaches for her hand to rest on his shoulder, I was hoping it would be you, and continues to speak, delighted curiosity undeterred by her disinterest.

And up they climb.

They jump off the ledge at the top of the beanstalk, and Killian glances down in her direction, red catching his eye, and he’s calling out to her, let me help you, but she pulls away.

“No, it’s not,” he insists, catching Emma’s wrist with his hook, and stepping closer. He really doesn’t know what’s possessing him to do this, yet he reaches for his rum anyway as she rolls her eyes at him.

“And I’m always a gentleman,” he responds to her. Why does he care? He’s a gentleman, it’s simply good form, he repeats to himself. That, and he doesn’t need unnecessary injury to his ride to Storybrooke. Yes that’s it, he thinks to himself as he bends to catch the scarf with his mouth in order to tie it properly. Nothing to do with whatever connection he may have felt to her as they talked during their climb.

He glances up at her, catching her eyes as he ties the scarf, and her green eyes darken minutely, he noticed, pleased. “And then?” she asks him, voice barely coming above a murmur.

“Then we run like hell,”

“I don’t have time to wait for a giant to fall asleep,” she refuses, and suggests the powder made from poppies. Well that’s riskier, he thinks, and says so after a moment, even as he continues to consider her plan.

“Than waiting for a giant to fall asleep when we need him to?”

“Point taken,” he grins. She just keeps impressing him, and he wonders that she seems surprised he agreed so fast. Did she expect him to argue more? Why would he argue with the admittedly better — and more importantly faster plan? “You’re a tough lass. You’d make a hell of a pirate,” he’ll just ignore the look, he decides, offering up the powder to her.

“Who’s Milah, on the tattoo?” she asks instead, and Killian’s heart clenches, any cheer he had been feeling drowned by the cold of grief, of rage, drowned by ashes in the wind and the echo of fingertips brushing his cheek, drowned by I love you and even demons can be killed. It really was all he could do not to jerk his arm away, instead letting it fall to his side and giving it a small shake to make certain his sleeve covers the tattoo.

But she continues to stare, undeterred by his closed off expression. After a long moment, he can tell she simply won’t let it go, and so, someone from long ago, slips grimly from his mouth, and he walks off towards the home of the giants even as Emma continues to press.

“She’s gone,” he replies flatly without turning back, and it hurts, hurts to think about her, the reminder has the image of her heart turning to dust playing in his head again, has I love you whispered in his ear, and phantom touches cradling his cheek has him clenching his jaw and —

“Gold.”

Killian stops.

Emma continues.

“Rumplestiltskin. He took more than your hand from you, didn’t he? That’s why you wanna kill him.” And it’s clear she’s less asking, and more speaking aloud her realizations, but Killian doesn’t need her pity, her sympathy, so he bites back, for someone who’s never been in love, you’re quite perceptive, aren’t you, and he’s completely still from keeping his frustration in check as he turns to face her once more.

“Maybe I was, once,” she admits.

And something changes between them, an understanding formed. She’s returning the favor, he realizes. He showed her a sliver past his own walls and now she’s letting him see a tiny bit in return.

There’s no pity in her eyes.

And so he relaxes just a bit more around her.

“Hook!” she’s calling out, reaching for him, and he’s giddy, delighted. They’d done it. He can’t help the laugh that slips out, you are bloody brilliant, amazing, and he laughs again. He’s staring down at the compass, even more beautiful than legend, and really, the success is getting to his head.

He’s out from under Cora’s thumb now, he has his path to vengeance, to Milah’s murderer in sight, and he’s traveling with someone who is not only gorgeous, but intrigues him like no one else in centuries, traveling with someone he can easily see becoming someone important to him, and for the first time in centuries, he’s —

It has him reaching for the compass in awe, and Killian is far too delighted to be disappointed all that much when Emma pulls it away. It’s alright, he thinks, after all, he’ll have plenty of time to prove himself, to gain her trust.

So he offers up his hand, thinking nothing of the doubting look on Emma’s face. She takes it, and his heart pounds, and for the first time in a long, long, time, he can see — he might just —

And then she’s locking shackles around his wrist.

What?

What is she— “What are you doing?” he asks, rising to his feet, blood running cold as she hastily steps away from him.

“Hook, I—“

“Emma, look at me,” he tries, desperately keeping his voice calm, “have I told you a lie?”

“I can’t take the chance that I’m wrong about you. I’m sorry,”

Wrong?

Sorry?

There’s a roaring in his ears, and he’s simultaneously extremely aware of everything he feels and extremely detached from what’s happening.

Is he—

Is she—?

Why is she walking away, she can’t be walking away—

But he’s still chained as she continues on, never looking back, and he’s helpless as he yells after her, the betrayal and abandonment and frustration burning him, boiling his blood, and really he’s still so lost, because —

Because why?

Frustration tears a noise from his throat, as his hacking away at the chains prove useless, as is attempting to pick the lock, and he’s left to sit doing nothing but stew because she—

Because —

(Because for the split second she grabbed his hand, before she chained — abandoned — him, he could envision someday letting go of Milah, of finally grieving her properly, like he’s never let himself do, because she took his hand and painted a future in brilliant colours, colours beyond the red of blood and vengeance he had lost himself in for centuries, because —)

Everything hurts.

Moving, breathing, smiling, laughing. Everything hurts, hurts like nothing else since those feverish days after he had lost his hand, when he was half mad and half drunk on pain, grief, rage, and rum.

Emma Swan stands over him, gorgeous as ever, with a grim look.

Everything hurts, but there is a grim satisfaction in him, and just like those days, he feels have drunk on the pain and some strange sense of loss.

“Hey, beautiful,” he calls out instead, and his words rattle his ribs, his lungs ache, Killian thinks he can taste blood, but he is so so lost, because he has gotten his revenge, but he is still alive, and nothing feels right, nothing feels at all, really, and this wasn’t supposed to feel like this, but no, he will not think of that.

It is easy enough to focus on the grim concern on Emma Swan’s face. Maybe he’ll wonder about that concern when he can think right, but right now, she bends down to check on his injuries, and he hasn’t seen her since he threw their fight at Lake Nostos, and she truly does look beautiful, “And here I didn’t think you’d noticed —“

Pain.

She had gently pressed her hand to his side, but even that slightest pressure burned. She tells him his ribs are broken, and he laughs regardless of the pain, because he feels wrong wrong wrong why does he feel so hollow, so he fixates on the Crocodile, did you see his face, he thinks wildly, pushing himself up, and he doesn’t even know if he’s speaking aloud or not, but he has to laugh, has to see the damage he has done, see the Crocodile faced with the loss of his love, see him with his love ripped from him in a single moment, “Just like Milah!”, because that must be why he feels so empty, because he hasn’t had a moment to truly appreciate the look on the Crocodile’s face.

He keeps fixated on him as he approaches, and is he speaking? He’s saying something about Milah, but it’s taking everything to simply stay conscious, and everything hurts, and why is he still alive? Never once did he imagine living after getting revenge, he knew full well this was a suicide mission, and his arm trembles under his weight, and Killian doesn’t —

A foot slams into his face, and there is a cane pressing down his throat.

Ah, Killian thinks, I’m going to die now.

Distantly, he hears Emma trying to pull the Crocodile off of him, vague sounds of raised voices, and some loud ringing.

The weight is off his throat, and he can breathe again, but his life’s mission is done, he can rest a bit, can’t he? Perhaps he’ll see Milah again. If he does, he hopes she forgives him for the person he’s become, for what he has done in her name. Maybe he’ll even see Liam, but he’ll have to figure out how to look his brother in the eye.

(Captain Nemo was right. He should’ve taken his word for it.)

Killian wakes up.

Everything hurts. Someone has changed his clothes, his left arm feels empty, the weight of his hook missing. Each breath rattles against his ribs.

Emma Swan sits on the bed he lays in, watching him carefully.

“Where’s Cora?” is the first thing he hears.

What?

Killian suddenly feels very awake, and rapidly goes over the list of things he noticed once more. His hook and brace were missing. His clothes were changed, Emma was the only other person in the room, he had shot the Crocodile’s heart over the line, and everything hurts.

Oh, and he was, once again, chained.

“Again?” he asks Emma, and he’d laugh if it wouldn’t hurt so much, “You’re really into this, aren’t you?”

He moved up — attempted to, anyway, damn, that hurts, and Emma simply stands over him and reminds him of his cracked ribs. “Where’s Cora?”

Who cares about Cora?

He hasn’t seen Emma since Lake Nostos, not including whatever the hell happened after that metal contraption slammed into him. He was so drunk on pain, exhilaration, bloodlust, and loss that he — loss? Why would he —

“You look good, I must say. All ‘where’s Cora’ in a commanding voice — chills.” He says instead. You have all sorts of sore places I an make you hurt, and he only smiles blandly, entirely too distracted on —

Fuck what the fuck why —

“I have no idea where Cora is,” he grounds out, and fucking seven hells, but Emma only gives him a smile that is somehow both smug and bland at the same time, so instead he asks after his hook.

“You’re awfully chipper for a guy who just failed to kill his enemy, then got hit by a car,” says Emma dryly, and ah, is that what those metal contraptions are called, cars, strange name, but everything else is still intact, Killian drawls, but more importantly:

“Plus, I did some quality damage to my foe,”

“You hurt Belle,” Emma says incredulously, but no, that’s not the point.

“I hurt his heart,” he corrected fiercely, “Belle’s just where he keeps it.” After all, the Crocodile tore out Milah’s heart and crushed it to ash as punishment for her daring to not love him, for daring to choose Killian over him, then took the thieving hand as though people can be owned and bought and sold and stolen as objects, left him with nothing but Milah’s cooling body, ash and blood on the deck, a shattered heart, and nothing but vengeance to keep him going. He killed my love; I know the feeling, he smiles, sarcastic edge to it.

Then Emma leans forward, falsely sympathetic smile plastered onto her face, bringing her head more level to Killian’s, and unbidden, his heart jumps as the memory of their first meeting rises in his head, the exact same smile she had given him then right before she put a knife to his throat and demanded the truth from him, the first moment he gained respect for this woman.

“Keep smiling, buddy. You’re chained down, he’s on his feet, immortal, has magic, and you hurt his girl. If I were to pick dead guy of the year? I’d pick you.”

He returns her smile, equally false and sarcastic, forcing down the wave of bitterness as she walks away leaving him behind in chains once more.

He’s left all alone with his thoughts and no escape or distraction from the hollowness in his chest, no hiding from that empty, lost sensation.

What now?

I spent decades hunting down the men responsible for what happened. Why was he thinking of him now? No, he tries rationalizing, no, it must not be enough. The Crocodile is still alive, that must be why he still feels so unsatisfied. The metal of his cuffs are cold around his wrist, and the bitterness is still tight in his throat, and very suddenly, he remembered the warm hand taking his, the doubtful look, the giddiness as he thought of a future he had never once seen. And when I was finished? All I was left with was an empty heart and a bloodstained harpoon.

His mission must not be done yet. It must not be enough to hurt the Crocodile’s heart, Killian has to kill him, maybe — maybe then he’ll be sated, maybe then he can find peace, can stop drowning in this hollowness and —

Start? Revenge is no start, it’s an end, he’s always known this. But there is still the hollowness, the bitterness, the dissatisfaction.

And then what?

He thought of her hand taking his, the first time he felt like Killian Jones in centuries, even as she called him Hook, thought of the brief moment he imagined one day letting Milah go, of a future where he can leave revenge behind him.

Thought of the shackles closing around his wrist.

This is your chance, Killian. You don’t have to swim the dark waters any longer.

Killian twisted around, ignoring the stabs of pain from his ribs as he looks for something to pick the lock around these new shackles on his wrist.

“The map is working, we know where Henry is!” Emma rushes over to give him the map and Killian is quick to take it and explain where they are, and more importantly, where the lad is. The prince, surprisingly, backs him when he tells off Regina for being too rash, impatient, as does Emma, clearly already done and frustrated with Pan’s peculiar sense of humor.

“And if I disagree?” Regina, ever the queen. Killian is starting to think she’s doing this simply to get on Emma’s nerves.

“Go ahead, but I think you know that our best chance is together.”

And because it’s clear Regina has no other plans, and was likely disagreeing for the sake of it, she relents quickly enough, with only a muttered you’d better be right.

She’s brilliant, really, the way she still keeps calm and patient despite the constant doubting Regina lays into her, the way she manages to stay strong and focused despite the loss and worry the loss of her son clearly weighs on her. He simply cannot help but be in awe of Emma Swan, and he sees no reason to hold back his admiration, because so far, she is the only one who has not constantly doubted him and his motives, who has not fought his suggestions or advice at every turn, and she deserves to see some semblance of faith, some mirror of the faith she has placed on him.

“Excellent show of patience, love,” he smiles at her as the others begin to disperse, and he pulls out his flask to offer it up in celebration. “And that, is what defeats a nasty little boy.”

“I hope so,” she murmurs absently before shaking her head and laughing at the flask he offers. “Is rum your solution to everything?”

It certainly doesn’t hurt, he shrugs, taking a swig, before silently offering it up to her once more.

She takes the flask and drinks.

But, as ever when it comes to her, he is curious, endlessly curious, he wants to learn more, take whatever she gives him, beginnings, middles, ends, whatever she will let him see. So just how did you unlock the map, he tries, but she merely smiles, deflects with a “Wouldn’t you like to know,” and it’s clear she means for him to laugh as well, for them to brush it off casually before following the others to prepare and plan for whatever Pan has except —

Except he has wanted to know who she truly is since she pulled him from a pile of bodies, caught him in a bald-faced lie, put a dagger to his throat, and tied him to a tree. He has wanted to know her since they climbed the beanstalk and he had called her an open book, because despite what he says of open books, he sees only the summary, only the passages echoed in his own story, only the pages just now being written, but none of the early chapters. He has wanted to know more since she put a shackle around his wrist and left him behind, and he locked her in a cell and left her in return, since she came at him with a sword, plainly inexperienced and reckless but making up for it in endless bravery and love for her son, and he couldn’t bear to get in her way, simply throwing the fight as subtly as he can so she could get back to her boy without Cora raising a fuss. He has wanted to know more since he was crumpled in pain in the mud and she stood over him, and he couldn’t help but call her beautiful, and he started thinking of what lay for him in the future, since she stood before him, asking for the bean and telling him that he could once again, be a part of something.

“Perhaps I would,” he says instead, and he couldn’t help the mild disappointment when she only holds his gaze for a moment before walking away, and couldn’t help the disappointment because that was the answer he had expected from her.

Killian wasn’t expecting the prince to just come out and acknowledge him like that.

Really, this whole day has been hard on him, harder than the usual day in Neverland, what with the constant memories of Liam threatening to resurface, and Pan’s deal. But the acknowledgement, the thanks —

It has him shifting uncomfortably, and he can hardly meet any of their eyes, and it feels good, no matter how wrong it feels settling on his chest. After all, he hardly deserves it, all he did was prolong the inevitable death sentence (Liam rarely ever says sorry, says he was wrong, and it was one of the last things he said, and now Killian is cradling his brother’s limp body, all because he had goaded him into testing the dreamshade, and now he’s all alone, lost like nothing since his father sold him —).

But the gratitude in David’s eyes is genuine, even if the tale he spins is not, and Regina is looking torn between surprised and impressed, and Emma — Emma looks like she doesn’t know what to think.

(Emma looks like she’s seeing him.)

She drinks his rum, toasting to him, and he can’t look at her, forcing down the bitter, guilty feeling that he had just sentenced her father to either a life in Neverland or a funeral with his family grieving over him the moment the Jolly Roger settles in Storybrooke, the same way he had Liam.

He and Emma are alone now. It is silent for several beats, before “Did you really save his life?”

“Does that surprise you?” he asks, genuinely curious. What kind of man does she think he is? Judging by her tone when he had asked about his story in her world, she had nothing particularly good or interesting to think about regarding him before they had met. But after... what does she think?

“Well, you and David weren’t exactly — how do you say it? Mates.”

Her attempt at his accent should make him laugh, but instead he turns to face her properly, pouring every ounce of sincerity he can into his voice, doesn’t mean I’d leave your father to perish, because as much as David will still die, as much as he is undeserving of their gratitude, he can, at the very least, claim that he has pushed back David’s death to give him some more time, time to come clean, time to say his goodbyes.

Thank you, she returns his sincerity, and it twists at his heart. So Killian shifts gears, easily slipping back into his pirate persona, letting a sly smile spread on his lips. “Perhaps gratitude is in order now,”

His tone is light and playful, and her own smile slowly starts to spread, and it makes his heart skip a beat, because oh, it chases away the shadows of his mind, pulls him away from the cabin cradling Liam in his arms as he is helpless. That’s what the thank you was for, is amused and teasing, and oh, he is in this for real now, no longer some charade to mask whatever grief and guilt was haunting him.

She smiles at him like she can see Killian Jones beneath Captain Hook.

He thinks it could be very easy for someone to fall in love with her as he continues to tease, is that all your father’s life is worth to you, and her smile only spreads, shakes her head, tells him that he couldn’t handle it. (All Killian can think is he can handle anything so long as she smiles at him like that.)

“Perhaps you’re the one who couldn’t handle it,” and they only stare at each other after, and Killian can’t completely squash his smile, no matter how much he’s going for daring, for tempting, but it wouldn’t matter regardless, because at any moment, she’ll laugh him off before walking away from him once more —

She reaches for his coat and drags him forward, and she kisses him, and oh.

His hand comes up to her hair, and he’s dimly aware of her own hand in his hair, but she is kissing him, and all he can think is oh. It takes him a moment to even register it, to respond, and he can taste his rum on her lips, and he has to breathe in, and he gives back as much as he can, gives back to this woman who keeps challenging him and pushing him, makes him want to become a part of something once more, become that honorable man he once was, even if he could never reach her, her, who is taking the rotten, shattered pieces of his heart and is starting to put them back into place in a single breath, and oh, his future has never seemed so clear.

She kisses him like he can someday be Killian Jones once more.

They separate, but they stay pressed together, and they are breathing the same air, and he has no words, is at a complete loss, all he can think is, “That was —“

“A one-time thing,” she says, pushing away from him, and what? But she is turning and walking away from him once more, tells him not to follow her, and he realizes that there is no way he can deny her anything she wants, as you wish, spilling from his mouth with half a bow that she doesn’t even see, and he turns away, but his lips burn.

A one-time thing? Not once since Milah had he been kissed like that, had he felt like that, no number of tavern wenches or prostitutes, no number of the men or women he had fucked had ever once come close to even the echo of healing his heart, of thinking that he could find another, of letting go, not like this single kiss had. The brief flashes and feelings he had gotten from her up on that beanstalk was nothing compared to that. And this was a one-time thing?

(She had kissed him like he might already be Killian Jones.)

(He thinks maybe he really couldn’t handle it.)

Bae sat in a cage across a massive chasm, and he cried out to Emma.

Behind him, Killian could hear Emma murmur Neal’s name, a strange tone to it that Killian was to distracted to try and consider. David and Snow White begin speaking quietly, considering ways to make it to Baelfire, but “I told you what needs to be done. Consider this the moment of truth, literally,”

He has no desire to speak the secrets of his heart, no desire to dig up all the crimes he’s committed yet kept secret, no desire to bring back his long, long past.

Somehow, he feels they wouldn’t work anyway, not with the way thoughts of Milah no longer bring that burn of pain and grief and rage.

“So what,” Emma asks doubtfully, “someone tells their secret and they sprout wings?”

“I don’t know the particulars, only what I’ve been told,”

“How do you know it’ll work?” David asks, far less hostile than Killian is used to from the prince.

He turns away from them, considering the distance between him and Bae, thinks of the boy he had taken in, taught to sail, to fight, thinks of the boy he once thought could be family, as Milah once wanted. Only one way to find out, I suppose, he sighs. He thinks of the look of betrayal on Baelfire’s face as he confronted him about Milah, demanded to leave, the look of horror as Killian lashed out by selling him off to Pan in exchange for himself and his crew, thinks of the way he had stood at the deck of his ship that day with the last bean, staring down the scratched out symbols for port and starboard, he just lost his father, ringing in his ears.

He could give any secret. He certainly has an abundance of them, lived far too long, committed far too many sordid crimes that he buried deep in his mind in an attempt to escape the guilt and shame building up in him. But he has always been far more free with his acts.

And he has always kept his heart close, hidden from view, sometimes even from himself.

Killian knows what needs to be done.

“I kissed Emma,” he turns, and Emma rolls her eyes as David starts to complain, but he has no care for them, only has eyes for her, even as she says she already told her mother, and it was just a kiss, and how is that your darkest secret.

“It’s what the kiss exposed,”

Perhaps it was just a kiss for her. But he had never felt as right as when she had kissed him, never felt so at peace with himself, and she walked away with one-time thing but all he could think of was all the thoughts and feelings he had been burying since he had met her, the thoughts of a future, thoughts of how pointless his quest for vengeance had seemed next to her, the feeling that he was lost, that he was drowning, lost in darkness until she had pulled him out of it when she pulled him free of bodies, when she took his hand on the beanstalk, when she told him he could be a part of something.

She had kissed him and breathed air in his drowning lungs, she took his hand and painted a future beyond the reds of blood and vengeance, he called her an open book and she returned the favor with we understand each other, and he hadn’t felt such fear in so long as when she lay on the deck of his ship, still, drowned, not breathing. It’s the way she smiled at him, thanked him, kissed him, the way Milah’s name brings him the ache of a love lost, wound scabbed over, now, no longer open and raw, and the way he wants to become worthy of all these things.

He speaks the words he always stops himself from speaking, cuts himself off from thinking, because his heart was far to broken, rotten, shattered for him to think it could feel this way again, thinks perhaps maybe his heart still works, “I never thought I’d be capable of letting go of my first love, my Milah, to believe that I could find someone else.”

He doesn’t look away from Emma. He doesn’t think he could, anyway, not with the memory of the beanstalk and the first time he had felt like Killian Jones and not Captain Hook, not with the memory of the way she had dragged him in, the memory of her kiss, not with the way she’s looking at him now.

That is, until I met you.

He doesn’t need the rumbling of the Echo Caves to know this is his truth, the truth he had been trying and failing to bury down, and he thinks maybe his heart is starting to heal when Emma approaches him hesitantly, mouth open as though to speak, hand reaching out to him, before getting distracted by David and Snow’s confessions. Each shattering confession builds the bridge, each confession clearly tearing at Emma more, until she starts to cross the bridge to Bae.

He thinks maybe his heart is starting to break when Emma glances back at him briefly before reaching and releasing Bae, and the two embrace tightly.

10.

Emma, you have to go.

Killian watches as Emma holds back her tears, as she says goodbye, goodby to her parents, to Neal, to Regina.

You’ve touched the lives of everyone here.

He can’t quite think of what he wants to say to her except that he doesn’t want her to leave. She has walked away from him, left him behind so many times he stopped trying to keep count, and it seems she will do so one more time.

One last time.

He has to say goodbye.

He catches her as she moves away, moves towards her bright yellow car, and he leaps at the nearest thing to say, and if this is to be their last conversation, he wants her to smile at him, wants to remember the way she smiles at him, that’s quite the vessel you captain there, Swan, and she manages a weak smile to his relief, but her eyes are watery, and he will never see her again, never see her smile or hear her laugh or feel the brush of her fingers as she reaches for his rum.

He was drowning and lost when they had met. He was focused solely on his revenge, not caring for whether he survived or not, not caring for whatever may lie ahead beyond that.

She gave him direction for the first time in such a long time, and she hadn’t even meant to do so.

And now she was leaving him one last time.

“There’s not a day that will go by that I won’t think of you,” Killian swears, because it’s true. He’s in love with her, he realizes with sudden clarity — completely and utterly — he’d say hopelessly in love, except nothing gives him more hope than Emma Swan, even as he says goodbye.

He doesn’t know what she will say to him, doesn’t truly know what she thought of about whatever was building between them, doesn’t particularly know if she would have chosen him, wanted him.

“Good,” she smiles at him.

He is helpless to smile back. He’s in love with her, he thinks again, helplessly. They’ve always had a connection, always understood one another, were always open books to one another.

She is leaving him with a single word, but he can satisfy himself with this, with the knowledge that — that maybe — maybe some other life —

Whatever it was that was building, it can never happen, they could never figure it out, but — but — but she was open to it, to him.

He stares as she gets into her car, as she drives away as Regina alters the curse engulfing them, and his heart is broken.

She had shown him that his heart still worked, could still love, could still care about someone other than himself, could still be a part of something, could still break, and all he has is good, and Killian thinks there is nothing for him with these heroes, in the forest, thinks maybe the Jolly Roger, the open seas and endless adventure and piracy could help him heal his heart, could help fill the hole left by another love lost, could distract from the fact that he feels very much like Killian Jones, and not Captain Hook.

(He thinks, deep down, he already knows the answer to that.)

11.

Killian’s heart pounds as loud as his pounding on the door in front of him. The loss of the Jolly Roger is still fresh, but it is nothing to the hope of seeing her again, seeing her safe, happy, of bringing her back to her family. The door swings open, and she’s got a polite confusion on her face, and his heart feels whole again.

She is more beautiful than he remembers.

“Swan,” he breathes, “at last,” he took a step forward, but she holds up a hand to stop him in his tracks, and she stares back, bewildered, confused, suspicious, and do I know you stings, but it doesn’t matter, he knew this, expected this, and he is far too happy to care about the pain, because she’s here, and he starts talking about her family, and Killian is sure he sounds like a madman to her, and she demands to know who he is.

“An old friend,” is all he can say, “Look, I know you can’t remember me, but —“ this is a terrible idea, he thinks to himself, a terrible, terrible idea that most certainly will not work, but the hope and joy he hasn’t felt in a year is building and he’s feeling reckless and impulsive, and so he says “I can make you,” and he’s leaning forward, pressing his lips to hers, and for the briefest moment, he lets himself hope, before —

Her knee jerks forward, and his groin bursts in pain, and he’s being pushed backwards to the wall of the hallway, cursing his own stupidity and this damn memory curse on her as she cries out what are you doing, and he answers honestly, as he always does with her, because there’s never any point in lying to Emma Swan, not that he would want to anyway, “A long shot,” he groans out, “I had to try. I was hoping you felt as I did.”

“All you’re gonna feel is handcuffs when I call the cops,” she snaps back, retreating, but Killian has to stop her, has to make her listen, get her to believe him, to trust him, and dammit she kneed him hard.

“Look, I know this seems crazy,” he starts desperately, “but you have to listen to me, you have to remem-“

The door slams shut in his face.

Well, good going, Jones, he thinks furiously, you’ve gone and fucked that up, too.

Now what?

Apparently, now he’s following her to some restaurant, watching her greet another man with a smile and a kiss, and it hurts, but it doesn’t matter, his feelings don’t matter, not as long as Emma’s in danger, her family needs her, and as long as she seems happy with this man. Bae’s old address is written down on a piece of paper he managed to nick, he remembered it from last year when he had followed Emma and Gold to New York in a desperate attempt to kill his enemy.

Except even back then he’d already been questioning himself, his quest, questioned just how much he’d wasted of himself, his life, time, soul, for the briefest moment of satisfaction that came with blood spilled.

Even back then, Emma Swan had already gotten to his head.

Now, Emma’s — lover? — had gotten up to leave, and Killian leapt at the chance, I can explain, already spilling from his lips the moment Emma looks up to see him. “You are a stalker —“ she accuses him, but he’s already imploring her, don’t scream, just hear me out, and he’s apologizing to her, “For trying to kiss me?” she questions, and she picks up the table knife, and Killian has to swallow a remark at that, because damn now this is starting to remind him of their first meeting.

“I was merely trying to jog your memory,” he explains.

“It’s time for you to go, now,” she demands, but he can’t because —

“Your parents are in great danger,”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” her voice is cold, understandably so. Because you think you’re an orphan, ‘cause that’s haunted you your whole life, because he knows, knows in the way the mere thought of being under someone’s control, ordered about without a choice to refuse, being a slave once more, sends shivers up his spine, the same way loss of love, of being abandoned by death or choice still haunts him.

“You don’t know me,” she dismisses him.

“Alas, I know you better than you know yourself,” he knows this for sure at this moment, when she still has false memories, still has no recollection of the abundance of people who’s lives she has touched, who she has loved, has wanted, no recollection of being touched, loved, and wanted in return. She has no recollection of their connection, their easy camaraderie, those moments they shared on his ship and in Neverland, their kiss and the way he bore his heart to her in the Echo Caves, or on the way to Dark Hallow, or at the town line, when she has no recollection of ‘good’.

“I have proof,” he pulls out Neal’s address, slides it over to her, “Take a gander. Here’s an address. If you wanna know who you really are, who your parents are, go there.” Please, he thinks, try something new.

“Leave. Now,” but Killian presses on, you’ve been there before, back when he was still on the wrong side, when he still opposed her, still refused to let go of his revenge, refused to admit what he had begun feeling for her.

“A year ago I was in Boston,” Emma insists, spinning a tale about a fire, and Regina really did a number on you, “You’re a crazy person, or a liar — or both,” she scowls.

“I prefer dashing rapscallion,” he quips, because he just can’t quite resist it anymore, and he really does miss those eye rolls and flat, unimpressed looks she gives him when she’s trying to hide the fact that she finds them funny. Yes, that same one she’s giving him now, and even without her memory, it makes him want to smile, “Scoundrel?” he offers again.

“Give me one reason not to punch you in the face,” she snaps at him lowly, because of course it wouldn’t be this easy. Fine then, he’s got one more card to pull anyway, try using your superpower, and she stares back, see that I’m telling the truth, he looks back at her earnestly.

Just because you believe something is true doesn’t make it real, and he has to agree, but still, “I know you, Swan, you sense something’s off,” and he tries once more, desperately hoping she’ll trust him, take that leap of faith, or at the very least, is curious enough to go, “don’t do it for me, or you. Do it for your family,” and he knows there is nothing left he can say to convince her until she goes, until she meets him again, so he leaves.

The next day he is pacing at Central Park, and he doesn’t know how long he’s been waiting, doesn’t know how much longer he’ll have to wait, but he will wait however long it takes.

He sees her approach, and all he can feel is relief, even as she looks furious. She ignores his words, getting straight to the point, “Why didn't you tell me that was Neal’s place?”

“I think the tone of your voice answers that quite clearly,” because he may not know the full story, but he can certainly glean enough from what she and Neal let slip, from the way she had acted around him, from maybe I was, once. But the more Emma presses him, just a bit more afraid than angry has him wondering just how far Neal’s abandonment of her goes.

“I already told you, I’m not here because of Neal,” he interrupts cautiously, but Emma is staring back at him like he’s mad, my parents, their kingdom, a curse, do you know what you sound like, and Killian can only sigh defeatedly, “Like a madman, I’m sure,” but he has nothing left except to plead, to ask her to trust him, to take a baseless leap of faith on the madman dressed strangely prattling on about kingdoms and curses and the family of someone who believes she’s an orphan. “If you don’t believe me at all, why did you come here?”

“Because Neal,” she starts furiously, digging something out of her bag, “has a camera with my son’s name on it. How?”

And Killian feels another swell of hope, because “Don’t you see, that is proof of what I’m saying,” he urged, “Henry must have left that there in the apartment when you were in New York last year,”

“Not good enough,” and Killian is getting desperate, clinging to the bits of hope he has. “I want answers, real ones,” her voice has a flatness he recognizes, and knows he can go no further, knows there’s nothing else he can say to convince her, and all he has left is the potion.

“There’s only one way you’ll get those,” he holds it out to her, and he’s reminded of all the times he’s offered her a drink, offered her his flask, all the times she’ll take it with a laugh or a smile or a roll of the eyes, or even just a quiet thanks. “Drink this,”

“Drink the thing the crazy guy just offered me?” she demands incredulously, and yes, he can see how she could take this, but it’s all he has left, it will help you remember all that you’ve lost, but she’s still staring back doubtfully.

“If one small part of you senses that, don’t you owe it to yourself to find out if I’m right? What do you say, love? Take a leap of faith,” he pleads.

He stares back at her, pleading and open, earnest, and she looks down at the potion doubtfully.

And she’s closing handcuffs around his wrist.

Dammit, not again, he thinks with growing despair as he calls for officers and chains him to a bench, and “Swan, what are you doing?” because bloody hell when he was thinking about similarities with their first meeting, he certainly did not mean for it to be exact, and he certainly does not want to be helplessly chained in place, calling after her retreating back ever again.

And now he’s stuck in some brig, being given some disgusting bologna that somehow passes for food in this realm, and they are trying to speak to him but all he can think is surely Emma wouldn’t let him rot here, wouldn’t keep him trapped here, and he misses his hook, misses the Jolly Roger, misses the way Emma looked at him when she knew who he was, even when they had stood on opposite sides, misses the smell of the sea, the wind in his hair.

But Emma does not trust him, does not look at him like he is more than just a pirate, like she can see the man of honor he tried so hard to go back to.

Even as he gave up the Jolly Roger to Blackbeard’s mocking laugh in exchange for the bean, he knew this would not be easy, knew he would be lucky even finding Emma, much less getting her to trust him, get her memories back.

The irony had not been lost on him. He had been sold, he and Liam had the combined worth of an old rowboat, his freedom sold for his father’s desperate attempt at his. Killian had fallen in love with the Jolly Roger when he had first laid eyes on her, back when she was the Jewel of the Realm, when he had his first taste of freedom in so long, coughing up water as Liam presents the Eye of the Storm to the Naval officers.

And then he had sold the ship that gave him his freedom centuries later to reach a woman who did not even remember him, did not believe in magic, or believe that she had a family, believe that she was loved and wanted.

And then he’s being released.

He hears Emma call out to him, and the relief nearly has him sagging, because she came back for him, he’s approaching her but she came back, and “I knew you wouldn’t let me rot in that cage,” he barely holds back his laugh, “I’ve been in my fair share of brigs, but none as barbaric as that — they force-fed me something called bologna,” and gods, even it’s name is ridiculous.

Emma is shuffling papers in her hand, and shows them to him, demanding “What the hell are these? We never lived in a town called Storybrooke, never took a flight from Boston to New York, we never did any of this,”

“So you believe me, then,” he asks cautiously, but she’s clearly still so confused, and he can hardly blame her with the way he had turned up from nowhere with no rational explanation, turning everything she knows upside down with half-deranged ramblings, and I don’t know, you could’ve photoshopped these, she says desperately.

But, “If you think these are forgeries, then why did you spring me from the brig?” she has no answer for him, but he rarely ever needed her to speak to know what she thinks, “Because as much as you deny it, deep down you know something’s wrong, deep down you know that I’m right,” but she is still denying it, denying him, but he is close he knows he’s close.

So he pulls out the potion one more time. Offers it up to her, one more time.

“It’s real,” she insists, “And it’s pretty good! I have Henry, a job, a guy I love!”

“Perhaps there’s a man that you love in the life that you’ve lost,” it slips from him, only really half considering what he’s revealing to her. He wonders how many times she will break his heart. He wonders how many more times he will let her. (He knows even being in her presence is enough for him.) “Regardless,” he manages to cover up, “If you wanna find the truth, drink up. Do you really want to live a life of lies? You know this isn’t right, trust your gut, Swan, it will tell you what to do.”

She is staring back at him, and he can only hope, hope she can find it in her to take a leap of faith, to trust him, to trust herself, and Henry always says that, is said almost absently, and he is so close, it’s been too long, and right now, more than anything, he just wants to see her look back at him with recognition in her eyes. “Then if you won’t listen to me, listen to your boy,” and he’s staring back at her, pleading, earnest, and he just misses the way she had smiled at him before they had kissed, the way she had confided in him about her doubts, inadvertently or not, misses the way she had smiled back at him when she told him, good.

(He wonders if she would have missed him, had she remembered, wonders if one can miss something they never knew they had lost, wonders if she’ll be happy to see him if she takes the potion.)

She takes the potion and drinks.

She says his name, and everything feels all right again.

12.

Love brings nothing but wasted years and endless torment.

But as he stared out at the sea, the horizon that would so often bring him peace, he felt nothing but the burn and ache of guilt.

Love brings nothing but wasted years and endless torment.

Killian was right, he had to be. He’s doing Ariel a favor, he repeats to himself. He did her a favor all those months ago, and he’s doing her one now by keeping quiet, right?

Love brings nothing but wasted years and endless torment.

Except... except it was his fault, wasn’t it? Her prince now lost because he refused to give up his ship, refused to swallow his pride, for her all those months ago.

It’s getting dark.

And the guilt that kept a grip on his heart from the moment he laid eyes on Ariel once again just grew tighter. He has to make this right.

He’s turning, chasing after her, and the next thing he knows, his confession is spilling from his lips, Because I was too ashamed, I sacrificed saving your prince for my ship, I am so sorry, Ariel.

She slaps him again, just like last time.

And just like last time, he keeps still, taking what he deserves.

“You’re a coward,” she accuses him, “and a monster. You let a man die for your ship? What kind of person does that?”

“The kind who’s empty,” he answers, voice hollow. “Who believes a ship can fill a void left by a broken heart.” As if that’s some kind of excuse, his mind spits back at him, and Ariel echoes this.

“No, it doesn’t,” he says vehemently. “I would give anything, to take it back, to make things right!”

He would, he truly would. He’s a villain, and nothing he does could possibly right his wrongs, could make him deserve a happy ending, but perhaps, perhaps, if even just one could find some way to forgive him, then maybe his soul isn’t lost, heart isn’t completely rotten, then maybe he could find the path he has to take to become the man Liam once thought he could be, become the man of honor he once was.

But — “How am I supposed to trust a man who no longer believes in love?”

Love brings nothing but wasted years and endless torment.

“I still do.”

“Then swear to me on it. This woman? Who broke your heart? You still love her?”

He thinks back to the bird warning him of the curse, the hope fluttering in his chest as the note had instructed him to find Emma, and the way he sought after Blackbeard and never thought twice about giving up the Jolly Roger for the bean. He thinks back to New York, the unbridled joy that had swelled up in his heart when the door opened beneath his fist, and saw Emma Swan’s confused eyes peering back at him. He thinks back to Neverland, the way she found the broken pieces of his heart and started to help rebuild it in a single breath, and leaving him completely wrecked in the next as she left him behind with nothing but a one-time thing, and good, and thinks of the way she had been the first in so long to see him beneath Hook. He thinks back to the beanstalk, where they had seen through each other’s walls like they were nothing, where she took his hand and for the briefest moment before it all came crashing down, he could see a future once more.

He thinks, again, to New York, trying so hard to convince her to try something new, to trust him and take that leap, a guy I love, and the way perhaps there’s a man that you love in the life that you’ve lost, had simply slipped from his mouth, and the way she found it in herself to trust him and drink the potion despite her memories. He thinks of the way she calls him by his name, calls him Killian in a way that makes him believe he could be Killian Jones once more, makes him believe he could someday leave Captain Hook behind, thinks of the way she smiles at him, the treasured moments in which she confides in him, thinks of the way she laughs, the way she stays so strong despite the weight of all those expectations upon her, thinks of the way she trusts him to keep her boy safe.

He doesn’t know when he fell in love with her. Perhaps it was the kiss, perhaps Echo Caves, where the feelings he had been trying to bury had been forced to the light, perhaps Dark Hollow, when she called out his name, worried for him, perhaps it was when she left him with nothing but “Good,” and a shaky smile, and the image of her yellow vehicle driving away from him as the curse engulfed him. Killian hadn’t even known he had started falling for her in earnest until he crashed, completely and utterly gone.

You still love her?

How could he not?

I swear on Emma Swan.

The brief moment of relief he gets as his yes and his vow lifts some weight off his shoulders, off his heart, is very quickly drowned by horror and panic as his lips sting and Ariel turns into Zelena.

(Later, when he has to lie to Emma, the look of pride and wonder and joy and the smile she gifts him has his heart weighing heavier than it ever did when he was all alone on the Jolly Roger, hopeless and heartbroken and aimless, and he wonders how he ever thought he could be someday be worthy of winning her heart.)

(And after, she tells him she doesn’t care about what he’s hiding, doesn’t want to live in the past anymore, all he can say is “I know how you feel”, and he can still feel her stare as he leaves, feel the concern, concern for him, and he has never felt less worthy of being in her presence.)

13.

She’s smiling. Emma’s turned away from him, leaning against the doorway as she watches her parents and brother, and she’s smiling, bright, wide, pure joy, and Killian thinks she is gorgeous, thinks she is breathtaking like this, (he’d certainly know what breathtaking feels like, he scoffs at himself), but “Never thought I’d see one of those,” he calls out to her because he can’t resist, because her cheer is infectious.

“It’s called a baby,” and his heart lightens even more, how could it not, when she’s looking at him with that smile, when she teases him lightly, when she moves over towards him.

“No, Swan — a smile,” and her grin only widens, eyes only brighten, we won, tone so pleased, and Killian wants to keep seeing this smile, this delighted Emma, wants to stay by her side as long as he can, but he has put her son in danger, put her in danger, has put her in a position to sacrifice her magic, forced her to choose between her magic or his life, and he can’t help but wonder if she made the right choice.

“With all the chaos, I never got a chance to say thank you,” he says, and she tilts her head, looks back confused, you really think I’d let you drown, but he has endangered her and her family, he had been turned into just another tool to harm her, and she was right to be furious with him, his inability to fix his own mistakes, thinks of all the times he bore his heart, thinks of all the times she had walked away from him, thinks maybe someday she might not come back, and, “Given our history, can you blame me for being uncertain?” he keeps his smile up, keeps his tone light, tries to cover up his doubts.

It must work because she laughs a bit. “Has your power returned, now that Zelena’s been defeated?” her smile fades just a bit, no, is said without much emotion, but Killian feels that stab of guilt again, can’t help but wonder, again, if she had made the right choice, “I’m sorry, love,” is all he can offer her, because she had given her magic up for him, to save his life.

“It’s okay,” she shrugs, smiling at him again, “I won’t need it in New York,”

And Killian’s heart sinks, and he stares as Emma calls Henry to meet his uncle, stares as they join the rest of their family, and he stands at the doorway, outsider looking in, but he can no longer feel the cheer Emma had started to bring out in him, can no longer scrounge up much more than an incredibly weak, false smile, because she’s standing there, happy with her family, but she’s going to leave again, leave her parents, leave her brother, leave this town, leave him.

He doesn’t want her to leave him anymore.

He doesn’t want to keep calling after her retreating back.

He wants her to stay, wants to stay by her side, wants her to let him stay at her side, wants her to want him at her side, wants her to be a part of something.

Killian watches them, outsider standing alone by the door, watches them celebrate, coo at the newborn, wide smiles and bright eyes, watches them happy and together, and thinks he wouldn’t deserve it.

14.

“So you just keep running,” Killian finishes, and it makes sense, in some way, except Killian doesn’t want her to leave, doesn’t want her to run.

“I learned something a long time ago, Hook,” and he voice is quiet, gentle, tired, maybe even just a bit apologetic, “Home is a place, when you leave, you just miss it. So yeah, I’m gonna keep running until I feel that,”

He doesn’t want her to leave. He knows she doesn’t want to leave, either. He saw her smile back at the hospital with her family, remembers her a year ago at the town line, in tears because she was being forced to leave. He didn’t imagine the look on her face when she realized she had to leave, didn’t imagine the relieved set to her shoulders when her parents remembered who she was, didn’t imagine the way she had smiled at him at the town line last year, when he had promised her everyday.

He hadn’t imagined the way her thumb brushed his jaw, the way her hand cradled his head when she chose to save him over keeping her magic.

“So you’re just gonna leave your parents, then. Don’t you even care about them? Or anyone in this town?”

Perhaps he did imagine it. Perhaps he had been seeing things that weren’t there, perhaps the near-death experience managed to scrounge up those sensations. But still, he can’t get her smile out of his head, so bright and wide and happy, standing by her family’s side looking down at her brother, the smile of someone completely at peace with her place.

And Emma is looking back at him, like she can see right through his words, like she can see every doubt writing itself in his head, see just how much her talk of running to find a place to miss has him thinking of all the times she ran from him, all the times he had to chase after her, all the times he had missed her.

“Of course I care,” she insists gently, “I just have to do what’s right for me, and Henry, and —“

Then they’re up and running towards some beacon of light because they can never get a quiet moment to just breathe and speak, always another crisis on the horizon, and dammit, he’s just going to have to enjoy these minutes of peace, won’t he?

They’re at the barn again, and whatever is happening has absolutely no chance of being good, and Emma’s saying that Zelena’s death must have triggered it. The doors are rattling, planks look moments away from flying lose, and the light hanging above the door is swinging wildly, and Emma is running towards it what is she doing —

“Wait!” he caught her arm hastily, “We have to get out of here.”

“Not until we find a way to close it!” she protests.

“You’ve got your magic back?” he questioned sharply, eyes flickering between her and the rattling doors, barely waiting for her answer before his fear for her safety wins out, “Then we’re not bloody well messing with any of this, let’s go!”

Too late.

The doors swung open inwards, and the force of the portal has them slamming to the ground, getting dragged in, and Emma he thought wildly, she’s twisting, reaching for him, and the moment he feels her hand grip his, he twists and slams his hook into the ground, but Emma’s too close, and she has to hold on, he’s holding onto her as tight as he can, begging her to hold on as tight as she can, but she’s screaming, but her hand is slipping and, I can’t, and the sound of the sleeve of his coat ripping sounds infinitely louder than the chaos of the portal, of the barn, and —

He stares as she disappears, as she falls into the portal.

How many times was this now?

“Oh, one of these days I’m gonna stop chasing this woman,” he curses, and even as he says it, he knows it’s a lie, knows he’d go anywhere for her, to the ends of the world (or time), would follow her anywhere so long as she let him stay by her side, because he’s still safe but Emma is gone, because his heart is in his throat, fear and horror as her hand had slipped from his.

So he twists, releases his hook and lets himself fall through the portal, and he doesn’t know where they’ll end up, doesn’t know when, doesn’t even know if they’ll fall out together, but all he can think of is getting to Emma, and the fall is painful, but he sees Emma’s red leather jacket just beside him, and all he can feel is relief that she’s all right.

15.

“Mary Margaret and David are always going on about this ball and that ball — what’s the big deal about these things?” she whispers to him, and Killian remembers the first time he attended a ball when he was still in the Navy, remembers his own awe, remembers Emma, just before they fell through the portal, calling these fairytales and stories and how she couldn’t reconcile her own life to this.

He can’t answer her, not when he doesn’t want to miss her reaction.

She’s staring, stunned, enraptured, lips parted, and Killian cannot help but grin at her, cannot help but feel so blessed to be the one to see this, see her like this, and he leans close to whisper “You were saying?” and she still looks stunned as he takes her hand what am I supposed to do, as if Killian would ever pass up this opportunity, pass up the chance to see her smile and laugh and dance and embrace being a princess. He had wanted quiet moments, moments without crises, without the shadow of a lurking threat, not traipsing around some manner of forest courting danger.

They’re on a mission, yes. But for just one dance, Killian does not want to court danger. For just one dance, he wants to court only her.

So he leads her across the room into the crowd of dancers, and she doesn’t seem to believe him, are you saying you know how to do whatever this is, and Killian just moves her hand to the right places, steps just a bit closer, rests his hand on her waist, and he doesn’t know if he can fall any deeper in love with her, because for as long as they’ve known each other, he had always been the one to follow her lead, to put his faith in her and her knowledge of her world, but now — now she’s putting her faith in him, following his lead through his world, and she trusts him enough to not lead her astray. “Pick a partner who knows what he’s doing,”

She is beautiful, an absolute natural, a grace and regality to her movements that makes Killian’s heart swell, all because she’s smiling at him like that, (like maybe she’s —) she may not think she’s a princess, may not think she belongs anywhere near this world, but the way she moves says otherwise, “I’m not mocking you, Swan, just thinking about what you said in Storybrooke, about not being a princess,”

He has sworn off royalty, has declared was on his own kingdom, declared war against a whole navy, has never had good relationships with royalty he meets after, not Poseidon and Ursula, not Regina, not Cora, there isn’t much more he distrusts more than monarchs, very little he hates more than a corrupt crown — but he would swear fealty to Emma Swan, would lay his cutlass at her feet and follow her into battle, into portals, into different realms, anywhere she would let him.

“Really? You get my first dance at my first royal ball, and all you can say is I told you so?”

“I believe what I’m trying to say, your Highness, is that you appear to be a natural,”

They are good together, they’ve always made quite a team, and Killian thinks he has never felt as good as when she is looking at him like this, never felt as right as when she is smiling at him like this, never felt as whole as when they are together, and right now, she is all he can focus on, all he sees, because they are good together and he’s completely in love, and she’s looking at him like maybe —

16.

Killian doesn’t expect Emma to come looking for him, doesn’t know why she came looking for him. “So,” she asks lightly, settling into the seat next to his, “do you think Rumplestiltskin is right? I’m in the Book now. He said everything besides our little adventure would go back to normal. Do you think that it is?”

“He’s right,” because Killian has spent the night scrounging his memory for her, for golden hair and green eyes, and for the way she looks at him, for the way she kisses him, but the only kisses he has are from Neverland and his attempt at a True Love’s Kiss in New York, “Otherwise I’d remember that damn bar wench I kissed.”

“How would that prove anything?”

“I know how you kiss,” he reminds her, remembers Neverland, remembers the way he always feels like Killian Jones with her, even when he was very much Captain Hook, because she had been the first in centuries to kiss him like that, and, past or present, memories or not, Killian or Hook, he’d have followed her anywhere. “I’d have gone after her. But I didn’t. My life went on exactly the same as before,”

“Must’ve been the rum,” she murmurs, and she is staring at him, and he wonders what she sees, wonders what she thinks.

“Everything’s back to normal. You’re a bloody hero, Swan,”

“So are you,” she returns, and Killian scoffs a little at that, because all he did was follow her, all he did was do what he’s already been doing for some time now. “I wanted to thank you, Killian,” makes him look up at her, makes him look her in the eyes because he can’t think of what — “For going back for me in the first place in New York. If you hadn’t —”

But it’s hardly something to praise about, he was simply doing the right thing, anyone else could have easily taken his place.

“How did you do it?” she asks, and Killian’s heart sinks. He had wondered how long it would take her to ask, had wondered how long he could keep deflecting, “How did you get to me?”

There’s no more running.

“Well, the curse was coming,” he keeps his tone light, keeps it as even as possible so Emma can drop the subject, can think it’s nothing all that important, “I ditched my crew and took the Jolly Roger as fast and as far as I possibly could to outrun it.”

“You outran a curse?”

“I’m a hell of a captain,” a hell of a captain who had a hell of a ship, “and once I was outside the curse’s purview, I knew that the walls were down, transport between the worlds was possible again, all I needed was a magic bean.”

“Those are not easy to come by,”

No. Not if you didn’t know where to look, not if you didn’t know the right people, didn't have access to the right prices, if you weren’t willing to pay that price. But Killian had had no problem with the price, had no problem tracking down Blackbeard, as loudly as he gloats about being in possession of a stash of beans, and he certainly had the leverage.

“They are if you’ve got something of... value to trade,” he can’t look at her right, doesn’t know how she’d react, doesn’t know what she’d think, and he misses the Jolly Roger, misses the scratched out symbols for port and starboard, misses his cabin, misses that little plank of wood that he can never get set right.

“And what was that?” she asks, laughing a bit, likely thinking of jewels or gold.

He doesn’t want to tell her, doesn’t want her to feel some sort of debt to him, but he doesn’t want to lie to her, either.

So Killian forces up a smile, puts on his most nonchalant voice, “Why, the Jolly Roger, of course,”

It doesn’t work, of course it doesn’t work, not with her, and she’s staring at him like she did when she had thought he helped Ariel, staring with surprise and awe and disbelief, and you traded your ship for me, and he can’t keep up the act anymore, can’t pretend that the Jolly Roger had meant nothing to him, not when Emma clearly sees how much it had meant to him.

“Aye.”

She’s leaning in to him, slowly, and Killian doesn’t move, wants to let her do as she wishes to kiss him or change her mind and walk away, to take the blackened heart he’s offering up to her, to let her break it should she wish, wants her.

Killian just wants her.

And she’s kissing him, and he can feel everything she isn’t saying. He can feel the gratitude in it, can feel that this is more than just thank you, this is her telling him she’s ready, ready to let him in, ready to lower her walls, to let him love her, to let him be a part of her life, and he wants it, loves her so much his heart is swelling with it, and they separate and she is smiling at him, smiling like she feels that everything is okay, that this is okay, that this is perfect and she wants it too, and as ever, her joy is infectious, building on his own, and this time he is the one to lean in, and she responds enthusiastically.

Killian does not have the Jolly Roger, but he can find his home here with her, because she was the first to see Killian Jones, because she had brought back Killian Jones, and he was so lost without her, had been lost in rage and vengeance, then lost in his own heartbreak, but he wants to do better, wants to become worthy of what she sees in him, of the privilege of being let past her walls, wants to become a better man for her.

She had managed to find her way past his masks and his own walls and find the heart he didn't think could still work, could still love or care for or break. She is kissing him and he has never felt so free, so at peace.

He thinks he could someday be worthy of it.

#ouat #captain swan #killian jones #emma swan #cs ff #my fanfic #j’s stuffs #a map and a shovel (to my achilles’ heel)#title from Sleeping At Last’s ‘Eight’#introspective as all hell #this is basically analysis headcanons and metas disguised as fic #a nearly irresponsible amount of italics #it’s literally my first time writing a fic id love some feedback #for if ever I keep it up I know how to improve

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moral-turpitudes · 4 years

Note

Hi can I request a TommyxReader one shot with 11. “If I’m not your first choice, then I won’t be a choice at all.”

Mistakes:

Trigger Warning: ANGST, Fluff at the end bc that gif broke me lmao.

Word Count: 1,572

Characters: Thomas Shelby x Reader

Requested by: Anon

Summary: Y/n walked in on Thomas kissing the new member of Shelby Co. Ltd. making her assume the worst, but nothing is ever as it seems.

Thomas watched as Y/n ran out of the betting shop, tears streaming down her face as the chill of the winter air whirled around her, stinging her skin as she headed to the Garrison despite it being early in the morning. The bartender recognized her as Tommy Shelby’s girl and immediately poured her whatever she liked despite the emotional state she was currently in. He knew better than to talk to her now and so he left her with the bottle and went to clean the dirty tables. It was empty apart from a couple of the local drunks who might as well live there on a daily basis.

Back at the shop Tommy stood frozen in the privacy of his office as his eyes welled up with tears. He swallowed the lump in his throat as he walked towards his desk, immediately grabbing the phone.

“Poll. I know you’re not in today, but I need ya.” He said, his voice cracking at the end. He heard her hang up and so he waited for her arrival. He racked over the last hour in his mind, mixed emotions of anger, fear, and sadness taking hold of him. In one quick movement he threw a glass at the wall, watching it shatter as he drank straight from the bottle in his hand. His mind pulling him in a thousand directions. He should never have done what he did, and he knows that it would take a miracle for Y/n to take him back, but he was sure the two of you were done.

Polly came in as Tommy wiped his tears away, staring blankly at the glass on the ground.

“What did you do?” Polly asked in a monotonous voice, clearly tired of cleaning up after her nephews mistakes.

“I lost her Poll. I lost the only woman I’ve truly loved because of one damn mistake.” He said closing his eyes as he took a swig from the bottle of whiskey.

“You cheated didn’t you...” Polly asked, taking a seat in one of his armchairs.

“She may as well think I did. You know the woman we hired a couple weeks ago? The one from London?” He asked going over to his desk and placing the bottle down.

“Oh that mess? Why did we hire her for? She can’t type as good as Lizzie and she can’t keep up with the bets.” She said lighting a cigarette.

“Well, last night she came to my office abruptly. I was here late taking care of paper work while Y/n was helping with the rest down the hall. But that woman came right in, no knocking or anything and started talking about how I needed to go out and find a good woman. Find a better woman...better than Y/n, and I could tell she’d been drinking. But I didn’t expect her to make a move on me Poll. She waltzed right in and kissed me. She knew Y/n was here but she did it anyway...” He said looking at Polly, his ocean eyes pleading for help.

“And she saw you both right? Did you kiss her back” Polly asked, tapping her cigarette on the ashtray.

“Yes she saw us. Poll you should’ve seen her face...she was broken. I tried to talk it over this morning when she got in the office. Tried to tell her I never kissed back, but it was no use. I tried to tell her what happened and that she walked in at the wrong time, but it was too late. I lost her as soon as that door opened.” He said.

Polly sighed as she watched her nephew sulking and got up and walked over to him.

“What you’re going to do is you’re going to find her and you’re going to apologize. Get straight to the truth and then let her be. She may not take you back but just know that our new employee won’t be working for us anymore. I’m going to write up a report and she’ll be leaving Shelby Company Limited today.” She said, shooing him away from his desk. He silently grabbed his coat and walked out following the dark streets to the Garrison to see if she was there.

As he opened the door his heart dropped as he saw her crying next to an almost empty bottle of gin. Her makeup running down her face as she rested her head on her arm not noticing his presence until he sat next to her.

“I came here to talk Y/n.” He said quietly, the bartender taking away her bottle when Tommy nodded towards it.

“I came here to drink.” She said slowly sitting up, her eyes narrowing as she realized the bottle was gone.

“Oi! Give that back!” She hollered at the bartender, but Tommy shook his head at him and put his hand on her shoulder. She grabbed his hand and pushed it off, folding her arms over her chest in defeat.

“I’m not interested...in talking to you Thomas.” She said slurring slightly.

“I know, but I at least wanted to apologize and to get the truth out there aye?” He said, looking at her as she blinked back tears.

“I saw you Thomas. I saw you and the new girl.” She said wiping her tears.

“That’s what you don’t understand Y/n, please hear me out.” He pleaded.

“Thomas...If I’m not your first choice, then I won’t be a choice at all.” She said before leaving the bar and going over to the coat rack.

Tommy walked quickly over to her and put a hand on her shoulder, stopping her from putting on her coat.

“Please hear me out.” He said. Y/n sighed and looked at him with tired eyes and nodded, sitting down at a nearby table and chairs.

“What you saw was a mistake. I made the mistake of letting her in my office. I didn’t know why she was there but she started spouting crap about ya. Saying how I deserved a better woman, better than you. And I told her to leave but she didn’t. Y/n what you saw was her making a move on me and I’m so, so sorry you saw that and if I could take those 5 minutes back I would. She kissed me and I didn’t kiss back, I promise you that. Look...I’m not expecting you to forgive me, but I just wanted you to know what happened before you opened that door. I wanted you to know that she’ll no longer be working with us anymore either. Polly is firing her today for it.” He said.

Y/n sat back in her chair, slowly taking in the information. She only saw them kissing, nothing else, but it still hurt her nonetheless because she loved him, more than anything in the world.

“I don’t know if I can trust you again Thomas. I mean it.” She said looking at him.

He sighed and held her hand. “Y/n you were my first choice, you always have been. I love you and I swear on my grave that something like that won’t ever happen again.” He said, his voice stern but soft.

She held back tears as she wrestled with her emotions, the gin wearing off slowly.

“I love you too, but Tommy I swear to god if you mess this up the second time around then that’ll be the last you see of me.” She said, getting up and grabbing her coat.

“I know.” He said helping her put it on.

“So can we try this again?” He asked.

“Yes. Now c’mon. We have work to do.” She said walking slightly wobbly to the door.

“I may have work to do, but you don’t. I’ll give you the day off and Polly will take you home. You deserve some rest.” He said, his hand wrapping supportively around her waist as they walked towards the shop.

“Alright, but no funny business. I’m serious.” She said.

“No funny business. Now c’mon lets get you home.” He said helping her inside.

Later that evening Tommy came home early, wrestling around with the small box in his pocket. He looked at his girlfriend sleeping peacefully on the bed, her makeup off and her hair slightly disheveled. He planted kisses on her forehead and one on her lips until she woke up. She smiled slightly, holding her head after waking from her alcohol induced slumber, wondering why he was home.

“What are you doing here? You don’t get back until 9 usually. It’s only 5.” She said sitting up.

“I finished some work with the lads and then I got to thinking...” He said kneeling by the bed.

“Thinking about what?” She asked.

“I got to thinking about how I’ve never been so in love with before with anyone...and everyone in the shop can see that. And I’ve never been so upset in my life as I was when you walked out last night and earlier today. I thought I’d lost ya. I’ve never loved someone as much as you Y/n. And i want to prove to you that I do and that I’d never let something so foolish happen again.” He said, taking the small velvet box out of his hand, revealing an intricately carved gold engagement ring with a diamond on top.

Y/n’s eye welled up with tears for what felt like the thousandth time that day, but this time they were happy ones. She thought about what happened and how truly sorry he was. And so after a moment of thinking through her options, she nodded, bringing him in for a kiss and watched as he slipped the ring on her finger, the diamond sparkling as the golden sun set amongst the room.

#katiesanons #anon asks #anons #peakyprompts #peakypromptslist #thomas shelby #tommy shelby #thomas shelby x reader #thomas shelby x y/n #peaky blinders #peaky blinders imagines #peaky blinders fanfic #peaky blinders oneshots

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themagicalmysticalboy · 3 years

Note

Rarepair week, george&paul? Angst/comfort maybe? Let it be era? Hurt my soul :)

a/n: you’ve got it babe! i actually did some research for the flashback scene so it’s pretty accurate to reality, according to Ringo’s and some crew member's accounts.

Don’t Let Me Down

For as cold as it had been for the last month, the sun was shining high in the sky. A peculiar sight that brought a hint of warmth to Paul’s face but did not extend further than that. He could be in a summer's day desert and still feel the cold churn in his stomach. Looming tall and strong over him was the Abbey Road studio. The uncharacteristic beams of sunlight lit the many windows with a yellow glint. A million-eyed monster ready to tear him to shreds if he dared step closer. And he did dare. He peeled himself off his car and stiffened instantly. He’d been leaning against the passengers' door so long that when the wind hit his back it sent a shiver right through him. Or maybe it was solely his nerves. Either way, he didn’t plan to dwell on it.

A few Scruffs were waiting outside with paper coffee cups in hand and drink carriers stacked against the wall. So George was in. He had really come back. The cold churn rose to his chest. At this rate, he’d be a human popsicle by lunch.

There was a disjointed chorus of “Hi Paul” and “Good Morning” which he replied to with a courteous wave. He’d been largely turned off by the Apple Scruffs for some time now but there wasn’t really any malice. Having your house broken into was more than a bit off-putting, though. So he felt justified. George was the most tolerant of them, buying them coffees and breakfast foods every so often. They must have missed him while he was gone. Yeah. Surely they did. Because I did. Paul pushed the sentiment to the wayside. They still had an album to make. They still had songs to record and a documentary to be part of. He couldn’t let his emotions get the best of him again. That had only led to an explosion.

Preparing himself with a stiffened posture and pushed back shoulders, he walked into the studio with a smile. It was almost painful to keep up but the cameraman was already in his face and he refused to let on to his nerves. He needed some inkling of control here and there was so little of that to grab hold of these days.

When he walked into the recording room, he found people scattered across the room but he didn’t find John or Ringo. It was still early in the morning so it made sense but he was undoubtedly rattled by the realization, becoming more rattled when he noticed George looking at him. Paul didn’t dare meet his eyes, drifting down to his feet. He looked soft, despite his sharp features. Cozy in his furry boots and warm jumper. He missed looking at that face and touching that body and kissing those lips. He wasn’t sure how long it had been since he’d been able to do any of that. Too long.

George gave a thin-lipped smile before turning to Billy Preston at the piano. Was that a good sign or was this small sign of grace feigned for the cameras?

Whatever it meant, it drove Paul mad. He didn’t think he deserved forgiveness but he sure as hell would take it. There was no helping the intrusive memories of the aftermath of George walking out. He had done it so nonchalantly that no one was sure he had actually left until they got to the recording room and found him and his guitar missing.

Something had shifted in the room as soon as the three remaining Beatles looked at each other. John was breathing heavily with an icy glare. There was a glint in his eye that screamed danger. It was focused on Paul. Picking up the bass with a death grip on the neck, Paul just stared John down. There was a mutual understanding in the moment. The rage in both of them was bubbling over more and more by the second.

John yanked his guitar from the rack and they both plugged into the amps. No one seemed to remember the camera crew was still around. They just turned to Ringo, who was already at his drums, drumsticks in one hand, rubbing his eyes with the other. He was pushing so hard it had to hurt. And that was it. John squared up to the mic and began to scream the lyrics to a song they'd already wrapped up but they all threw themselves into it without question. Screaming, banging, and heavy riffs filled the studio. Nothing made sense and every fiber of Paul’s being hurt so much that he didn’t care. He wasn’t alone in the feeling, at least. They all felt some level of hurt.

Ringo was even mad- at the situation or at George or at Paul, it didn’t matter. He banged and slammed away like never before. It sounded so wrong coming from him but at the moment it was the only right thing to do. They sounded perfectly horrible. There was a distinct addition to the vocals and Paul turned to find Yoko sitting on George’s little blue stool, wailing along with John’s screams. Yes. Perfectly horrible.

When the song was up the energy was still poisonous and thick in the air. They weren’t done, not by far. Paul stepped up to the mic and John did not move away. With little notion of what he was doing, he went at the lyrics of another song. The words spat from his tongue with vitriol and fire.

They all needed to scream. Ringo was at the mic at some point, coming up with random words on the spot. Really just to have something to yell about.

When they finished, panting out the last seething breaths, Paul felt empty.

“Way to fucking go,” John yelled, eyes fixed on Paul. “Way to go.” his voice was drastically quieter, more tired and sad and hoarse, eyes drifting to his feet.

Paul’s bass suddenly felt a thousand pound heavier, pulling the strap down against his shoulder painfully. Maybe it was more the weight of his mistakes than the bass. Everything felt painstaking and dreadful for the rest of the day. The anger was gone and the screaming was done. There was nothing else to keep his mind from wandering into a wall of depression.

In the present, sans John and Ringo, he shyly grabbed an acoustic guitar and went to sit in a corner. He worked on one of his own songs, quietly strumming and murmuring. He didn’t like it yet, keeping it to himself. The awkward air in the studio only exemplified his need for privacy. So he stayed tucked away, only speaking when spoken to, like a good little schoolboy. George had even come over to ask about the song but Paul told him it wasn’t right just yet. There was no way he was about to embarrass himself on top of all this.

He went back and forth for most of the day. Playing several takes of various songs before turning back to his own song. There was a part on one of the songs that Paul found needed a quieter guitar part. The thought of addressing this issue to George was met with resistance. Was he really ready to address him? The guitar part could be addressed later, maybe. He could suggest another take tomorrow. But the song. It just wouldn’t be right. And maybe no one would be willing to do another take later. That struck a nerve in Paul that rang louder than the rest of his rationale.

“Maybe,” Paul started, resolving to look directly at George for the first time since he walked in. “The guitar could be a bit quieter next take, y’know? Just sounds a bit heavy.” He tacked on quickly, glancing at Ringo, “The drums too.”

Ringo gave him a pained expression. Paul looked George dead on with a weak smile, though he could see John’s cautioning glare in his peripheral vision. George’s eyes were dark and apathetic. His jaw was set tight.

George Martin came over just when he was about to respond. Oblivious to the tension between them, he clapped a hand on John’s shoulder with a grin. “That was a great take, lads. Why don’t you take a lunch break with the film crew.”

“Wasn’t good enough for Paul,” George huffed, leaving first. “But what is?”

George Martin didn’t hear the remark and walked off to talk with Mal.

“You’re really going to cock it up already?”

“What!” Paul went quickly to his own defense. “It was a suggestion, is all. I’m not treating him with kid gloves just because we had a row.”

“A row? He left the bloody band.”

“Not being a prick for one day isn’t kid gloves,” Ringo suddenly chimed in.

Paul gaped. “Caring about the songs is being a prick now, is it?”

John huffed an indigent laugh. “You’re painfully stupid.” He left with Ringo in tow before Paul could ask for any clarification. Not that he was sure he wanted any.

Stunned by the attacks, he stared blankly at George’s guitar. He had absolutely none of his friends at his side. He had managed to push them all away when all he wanted, so desperately, was to bring them together. They were slipping through his fingers like grains of sand and all he could seem to do was open his hands to quicken the fall. He’d lose them forever. It was all his fault. How long would it take? When would they figure out he wasn’t worth the trouble?

He just wanted them to be alright. He wanted to go back to how they were and just tour a bit. Play on stage like they all used to love. The band couldn’t rip apart. It just couldn’t because Paul would tear apart with it. And yet here they all were, at wit's end with one another. The connecting link to this free fall was Paul, of course. He had made Ritch leave and then George. It was all too obvious that John wanted out - surely Paul’s fault as well.

He couldn’t imagine a world without Ringo, John, and George playing at his side. He didn’t want to. It was something new and terrifying that had no qualms with keeping him up at night, even when three glasses of scotch in. He couldn’t recall the last time he slept without drinking. Even still, nightmares filled his dreams and made sleeping seem worthless and just as tiresome as not sleeping at all. What a poor excuse of a man he was becoming.

With a tight chest and burning eyes, he got up. Thankfully, the film crew had truly gone to lunch. He was mostly alone with a few straggling technicians in the booth.

There was no way in hell he could go to lunch now. Not while it felt like the world was out to get him. Not while he felt on the verge of crying. Instead, he decided to go outside for a smoke. The cold winter wind cooled his hot skin. He fell against the wall with a thud and bit his lip. His eyes were pricked with tears but he wouldn’t let them fall. Not here. Not now.

Dragging a hand down his face, he dove into his pocket and pulled out a spliff he’d rolled that morning for this very reason. His hand was caught on his chin as he eyed the thing. A beacon of hope.

He wasted no more time in lighting it. The earthy taste coated his tongue and warmed his throat. He relaxed on the exhale and repeated the process until his mind was a little numb. The carefree smoke floated high above before disappearing into the brisk wind. It would be so much easier to disappear with it.

“Stay gone too long and they’ll think you quit too.”

Tension pulled at his neck and traveled down his body. With an involuntary jerk of his fingers, the spliff fell to the concrete. He didn’t look at the newcomer and didn’t need to. The calming drawl could only be from one person.

“So?”

Paul reluctantly turned his head to find George’s steady gaze on him. Words abandoned his brain. “So,” he asked stupidly.

George’s features suddenly dropped and Paul noticed there had been a hint of lightness seconds before. Great. Already cocking it up.

“Oh, fuck you, then.”

“George! No, no!” He jumped forward and grabbed George’s wrist. “Please, love.”

There was hesitation in George’s step. He shook Paul’s hand off but did not leave. “Do you even care? Care that I left.”

His brow furrowed and his mind swirled back to life. “Of course. We were all-”

“I didn’t ask about the others. Did you care?”

It seemed like such an absurd question. There was nothing to suggest he didn’t. He was downright miserable. Was that not plain to see? Something inside him made him want to switch back on the defense. Deflect and reject. But he couldn’t let himself slip anymore. Everything was on the line now. His entire relationship was up to bat. He’d just be honest. And honesty wasn’t all that hard when your heart wrenched at the thought of this charade continuing for another second.

“Yes! I cared. I thought you’d never come back and I was terrified.” He was desperately searching George’s face for any recognition of belief. “You didn’t answer my calls for weeks and I thought you wanted nothing to do with me. If you don’t I can't even blame you at this point. Just tell me what I did wrong.”

There was no hint of emotion from George. He had a corked brow that could mean anything. The time passing with no answer couldn’t be good. Maybe he wouldn’t answer at all and just leave Paul standing here like an idiot.

“You want to know what you did wrong?” A look of contempt screwed up George’s features. “I don’t even know where I’d start.”

A weight crushed every bone in Paul’s body. He deserved this. He deserved the heartache and pain. The more it hurt the better George might feel. He just had to hold his asinine tongue.

“You treat me like I couldn’t find writing talent if it bit me in the arse.” Paul tried to interrupt, despite himself, with an explanation. “Shut up and listen!” George moved closer, sizing Paul up. “When’s the last time you took any suggestion I’ve made seriously? You’ve been screaming from the damn rooftop about staying together and getting back to basics yet you sit in your little fucking corner like a punished child, ignoring us to work alone. What’s the point, then? Just to show how much of a pain you can be? You act like you don’t want me- any of us- near your songs and then boss us around on our own.”

George was pulling in unsteady breaths. He leaned forward slightly, really looking into Paul’s soul.

“You weren’t even the one to ask me back. Had Ritch do it for you, you coward.” George pushed him into the wall and Paul took it. “And you have the gall to ignore me! Even when I came to you like a stupid loyal puppy! That’s how you see me, isn’t it? Your little puppy that you get tired of when it makes too much noise. Well, fuck you and your damn songs. Fuck whatever you think you’re doing. You’re not keeping us together and you never could.”

Just punch me. The thought was screaming at the forefront and wouldn’t settle. Too angry with himself to stop, he yelled back, “Don’t you think I know? I see everyone slipping away and turning from me and all I can do is push you further! No matter what I try or how good I think I’m doing, you’ll just leave me out cold.” Caught up in it all, he shoved George back. “And you’re not a puppy! You’re my mate. You’re- I love you, alright.”

His voice cracked and, god, he was crying. He was actually crying and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

“Really just didn’t think you’d come back if I asked. And if that makes me a coward then sure. That’s what I am. If being a coward is what I need to have you near, fine.”

A muscle in George’s jaw tightened. He was stiff and his eyes were damp. His voice was so soft when he said, “Why didn’t you look at me? When you walked in you wouldn’t even really look at me. And when I tried to talk you just buried your head in your notebook.” He laughed mirthlessly. “But as soon as you have an issue with a song you go in with those big eyes of yours and I don’t want to hate you. It’s not fair.”

“You’ve said it, y’know. I’m a right coward. Scared to lose you if I speak and losing you just as fast when I don’t. Shouldn’t have turned you away. I shouldn’t have ignored you. The song- the stupid song. Don’t know if I even cared about how loud your guitar was. I just wanted to look at you, I think.”

“Looking at me now, aren’t you?”

And he was. They had been staring relentlessly and it felt good, no matter how much yelling they’d done. He wiped harshly at his cheeks to clear them of tears. “I’m sorry for being a prick.”

“Aye. You should be.” The words might have hurt if the corners of his mouth didn’t twitch up. He rubbed Paul’s shoulders and arms. “Just talk to me, okay? I won’t disappear, I promise.”

His smile was sad but genuine. All Paul could ask for. He nodded but then realized he already missed the point. “Okay,” he voiced. “Talking. Always been my strong suit.”

George’s smile grew and he pulled Paul into a hug. He hugged back fiercely, balling his hands up in George’s jumper.

“I don’t deserve this.” The words weren’t meant to leave his mind but they seemed to come of their own accord.

George moved him back and Paul almost pulled them right back together. “What do you mean?”

Bringing a hand up to caress George’s cheek, he tilted his head. “I don’t deserve to have you. Don’t deserve to have this band. Wouldn’t you be better off without me? I’m just here to cock it all up.”

“You… really mean that, don’t you?” With a shaky breath, George brought him back into the hug and gently held Paul’s head to his shoulder, petting down his hair. “No matter what happens to the band, it’s not because you don't deserve to have it. It’d be because we all need space, alright?” He held Paul a little closer. “And you don’t get to decide if you deserve me. That’s my decision.”

Paul nestled into the crook of his neck, scared to ask but not willing to keep it back. “And you think I do?”

“No. No. I just fancy hugging people I hate.”

Paul smiled into his neck. “Arse.”

#beatlesrarepairweek #mcharrison #mcharrison fanfiction #the beatles #George Harrison #paul mccartney #John Lennon #Ringo Starr #the beatles fanfiction #the beatles one shot #the beatles rare pair week

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hauntedelation · 3 years

Text

Looks Like Rain

Description: Chas tried his hardest to stop everything in the wake of you leaving. He was on a trip, but decided to take another after failing to qualm the pestering images in his mind.

Pairing: Gender Neutral Black Reader x Chas Reader

A/N: I really wasn’t sure where I pulled this from. I listened to a few songs that brought up a few feelings. And then I considered Chas for a little bit, he’s not seen much in this fandom but the young lad deserved some attention. This might be one of my sadder stories that I have written. (It also might not make any sense and I apologize for that lol)

Word Count: 5.4k

Warnings: heavy drug use, smut descriptions (18+!), depressive symptoms, puzzling ending, heartache, confusing feelings, angst, Chas wants to do whatever he feels is the right thing.

Errors weren’t intended, please enjoy y’all!

➽─────────────❥

His thumb pad swiped against his index and middle finger, a little residue was still left over. The specks were embedded in just about any space they could reach; the fabric of his trousers, shirt, and now the microscopic grooves in his skin.

He rubbed and he rubbed. The particles melted away, leaving nothing for the nerves to pick up. Which bled deeper, farther than the nerves, down to the bone.

Then there was the tapping, like a curious thump that you would hear in the dead of night only more rhythmic.

Into the aging cushion below, his hands sank.

The fabric was as lush as can be and would put a hefty dent in anyone's wallet, but it was collecting stains. Dismissed and expendable.

There’s that wondrous breeze slipping through the opened window, sweeping the curtains up and about, untethered from gravity. Evidently untethered from anything and they simply fly for a few moments.

The air was humid, stimulating on his damp forehead.

Chas can smell the night; the smoke and the concrete, the gas from the cars whirring past down below. He wonders about the other odors, those only emerging when the sun disappears, those that signal for the aberrant to come out and run around.

He was close to forgetting the stinging in his nose, the thick liquid dripping over his lips and down his chin.

Dotting his collared shirt, staining the couch.

He licks and he ingests some of the copper. It slides along his tongue, blends with his saliva, and he swallows. It’s familiar, reminds him of being in grade school when he would lose a tooth.

Except, he’s never really enjoyed that flavor. It was the tang that was carnal, rather grisly. His head falls back and he sniffs, using his white sleeve to smear it all away. It didn't matter that much if he missed a spot, everyone in the vicinity was stuck in their heads.

He can hardly breathe through one of his nostrils but he starts to feel—

Seven, eight, nine, maybe ten minutes.

That thumping is back again and it smites like some sort of nitro, white-hot voltage permeating his veins. His jugular throbbed, pushing against the skin of his throat. Then he could feel it right against his skull, picking up by the second.

This was always the moment that you felt most alive. Didn't people say that? Your body works diligently to keep you breathing, to keep you moving forward. You feel the most alive when your heart thuds against your ribs.

Though soon enough, he's not feeling much, nothing in his nose or along the back of his throat. There is some tingling from the bottom of his feet to that sensitive spot near his ears, but it always disintegrates.

It's so close, virtually there—perhaps he's reached it this time.

He wants to spring up off that couch, out the front door to run wild in the obscurity. He wants to do so much He knows that he can, just gotta decide on what. His father's voice comes to him, ‘the world is your oyster, son.’

Indeed it is, but Chas is afraid that those options his father had in mind were far more skewed.

Then he falls in his mind, he's strolling through the halls and inspecting those neurons zooming by faster than the speed he can blink. He sifts through those ideas, tosses away the unappealing. Chas sits and reflects.

He gnaws at a hangnail, and he ponders:

‘What about grabbing those keys off the counter?’ Just a little fresh air, feel the wind on your face and push through your hair.

For the life of him, he can't recall if he's ever taken a drive like that. ‘Have you?’

This is what he asked himself: 'You know where you drive so fast that everything is just a blur? All the colors look like streaks then.

He examines his desire, weighing his options. It's been a long time since he's left that stuffy apartment. No one would be able to stop him, really.

‘Chas, consider how much it would wake you. You might feel even better.’

Through the badly marred reflection of the glass table, he sees the red smudged on his chin and lips, drying slowly and flaking. He sees his grease-tinged hair, no longer in that neat part that he always styled it in.

There's more crimson, like tree roots through the whites of his eyes. There is more contrast with his irises yet they're just about covered with black. They sting every time he closes them.

Chas understands that it's been days since he's laid his head down and slept, been around the same time from him eating last. It was that cycle. He never felt hungry, so he didn’t eat. He didn't feel tired, a few nights without sleep would be fine. He's done this many times back home, in the pristine walls of Bredgar Hall.

It was the warmest time of the year, the moon was out and lazily so. Chas could see it was radiating now and again.

Next to that ray of light, the kitchen stove read 3:36 a.m. He could hear the vague snores of the people in his bed, each of the unknown, pretty, and contrived.

He thinks back to earlier that day. A sea of limbs, each moving with each other. Lips and tongue tasting his skin, teeth sinking in to leave marks. He remembers being in the center, wishing that everything was done harder. As if he needed the rough and the grating for it to resonate, to get his body to respond.

(It’s not like he needed to take a couple tablets to help him get ready.)

He would lay back and watch that orange light at the top of the camera-stand blink, the aperture capturing every movement, every sound. He would be adorned in those men and women, all taken in the flesh of each other—of him.

But Chas would retain that vision like he was standing a thousand miles away. He was never there even after leaving an indent in the sheets.

Time moved faster than he could comprehend now. Several months had to pass by, but he never found himself pulling away. This was what he wanted, wasn't it?

The boy doesn't know what he wants.

He can't feel a thing. Nothing inside his body nor the outside. He spoke with those faceless people, side-eyeing him in his expensive shoes, the creases of his suit jackets. Chas had wishes burning through his eyes and stacks of cash ready at the willing. He thought he was doing it right.

They had to have noticed it. The look of a young man desperately clawing for the keys to warp reality, to forget that...Chas craved this, far more than any breath entering his lungs.

And right here his mind is tormenting. Without a hand grasping at control, he'd begun to see a face in everything, one that was pivotal.

They weren't everyday features. No, nothing that he would see ever again.

Something to your likeliness would materialize in the darkness of the bedroom, your lips and your cheekbones, your voice ringing through a group of people.

He would blink, but no longer would you be there. So he tried his best to keep his eyes open, to focus his hearing. After each disappearance, there was him reaching out with those fingers, trying to feel for himself.

Feedback?

Nothing, you weren't there anymore, just a void remaining. It was that sensation of static on his fingers in that blank spot. There was a rational explanation for it.

So none of it happened.

➽─────────────❥

“I dreamt of you.”

You were still in that position where your head leaned against the white beams of the balcony railing. Your back was supported as well, and your legs stretched out in front of you. Your lap was reserved as a spot for his head to lay.

Your fingertips had begun to trace the line of your lower lip. Absentminded, it was a habit he noticed you perform while amid a thought or two. You had your eyes aimed upward, drifting over the black and swirling sky.

From his place in your lap, he was able to watch the clouds too—only that, the storm brewing above was not the true motive of his attention.

Something began to tug at the corner of your lips.

"Did you?”

You turned your head down to him, peeking through the strands of your lashes. He felt your fingers slip through his hair, stroking against the sensitive spot behind the shell of his ear. He'd twitched a little in response, though he wasn't intending to run from you.

Chas scratched at his ribs and attempted to nod, his head hardly moving against you, all before gathering the memories of that night.

"Yeah, but of course I was in it too."

It took a moment, but you didn't say anymore, you didn't rush him. Chas waited after a low roll of thunder, explicating,

“You and I were sitting in an overgrown field, there was grass but some yellow and orange flowers around us. We couldn't have been older than five. The sky was clear and bluer than I had ever seen it. You were located right next to me, sitting cross-legged in the dirt. I was too, only I was cradling my right arm. It was covered in a hard, green cast. It looked fresh like I just had it put on."

"How did you know it was me sitting next to you?"

You let out this light, airy laugh, and it stirred quite the mess inside of his stomach. Chas' eyes widened, not helping the inhibited expression on his face.

"Uhm–"

He'd forgotten that he never saw what you looked like as a child. He racked his brain,

"I could tell because of the way that your face was shaped, your eye color, and your nose. You didn't appear too different than what you look like now, only smaller."

You pinched his earlobe in jest.

"You were wearing jean overalls that had grass stains on them, I think I was wearing something similar. We were chattering happily but I remember feeling sorry for myself. I couldn't do much without my right arm. You appeared quiet, drawing shapes in the dirt. I didn't understand why until you whispered: 'I'm sorry for chasing you with a frog. I didn't mean for you to fall down.'"

Chas’ fingers twisted around a loose string in the blanket, he paused to gaze at his fidgeting.

"I told you that it was okay and that my parents were only concerned about me. I took the blame for getting hurt and you sniffled, wiping away a few tears. After a little bit, you scooted closer and asked me if it hurt. Your finger dragged along the rough surface of the cast, and I shook my head. 'It only hurts if I bump the cast on something.' So you stopped and looked up at me."

Your fingers began to slow in his hair. Chas paused once again, and he gaped up at you, reflecting. You were inquisitive but the rest of you was unreadable. He could feel that he held all the interest you could give, not missing a word.

Chas waited...for what? He wanted to finish.

"We decided that we couldn't play like we normally did. You were trying to find fun things to do that wouldn't get me hurt again. We had trouble finding one—until a lightbulb went off: I had a black marker stashed in my pocket. I took it out and asked if you would like to draw on my cast."

"You were...absolutely ecstatic to have been the first person to write on it. You brought yourself real close to me, so close that your hair brushed against my cheek. You took the marker in your fingers and began to write on my arm. It took a long time, but when you pulled away to let me read it, it said: 'This is a magic cast that will make everything you're scared of go away.'"

"Even though you scribbled it messily, I could discern what you wrote. I didn't know what to say to you, I just smiled, thinking about all the frogs outside vanishing to somewhere far away. I wanted you to draw more, so that's what we did But, I couldn't remember anything else after that."

Your touch reappeared with more confidence, gliding down his cheek, his throat, and settling to the front of his chest. He had gone to turn his head, still attached to you but looking through the balcony entryway and the shadows of the bedroom.

He waited until he could hear your voice.

"That was...some dream, Chas. I wonder what it could mean."

He hadn’t thought about that. What could it mean? Anything and everything he supposed. You let out a sigh,

"I think the last dream I had was about me playing the piano in school."

Chas hummed, suddenly riveted, you playing? That was certainly news to him. You only showed your skills in other areas.

"Really?"

You smiled, taking a moment to consider, "Yes."

"I love playing, but I am nowhere as great as you are. You've got this way about performing that makes it look effortless. You play freely, pieces that I know are the most complicated. I can't do none of that."

This is where Chas entered a mental block, despite the shade of him glowing nearly sanguine. He knew how it went with you. A willful thing who declares every word with sure conviction.

You never missed an opportunity to speak to him with firm approval, challenging his diffident mind on everything. Taking how gifted he was with a piano, he grappled with accepting that he was as good as you say. (He would if it was coming from anyone.)

Though his image had become so important to him in these past few years. All the eyes of his elders, friends—even his contemporaries were a constant force.

Chas thought that shaping his image for them had become taxing, the most formidable thing.

No.

When your lips formed around those words, the accolade, the delight in your voice. He was tortured with it, repeatedly with no other stressor coming close.

If you did enough in one day, he could feel an ounce of acceptance for it. But, he wouldn't be able to grasp those words for long.

There was a reservation that tossed around in his mind, most frequently in those days he spent with you. Why?

Chas looked back up at your face. "Why do you hold me to such high regard?"

This time you did stop, but you tilted your head down and scanned his face for a little while. Soon, he could feel your fingers tap the center of his chest. With your head, you gestured for him to sit up, off of your lap.

When Chas untangled himself from you, he let go of the blanket, sliding his hands back to brace his weight. He stiffened them at the elbow to support his torso up. And, just as you did, his legs stretched out before him.

You abandoned your previous spot by the railing, rotating to drape over his thighs. At this moment you were just about eye level with him, your body, and his bare before the night.

His abdomen tensed under the light drag of your nails.

You had intended to pierce his eyes with yours. It was only made obvious the way you took hold of his jaw, a different grip than he ever felt from you.

"I'm not very good with words," you began.

Lightning struck in the western horizon, crackling and casting the image so vividly in your irises. It was right then, he could hear a thumping in his ears.

"For me, it's everything that you are. The way you do things, walk through life…You give yourself to everyone, no matter the cost. I've never seen anything like it."

You crept up and stroked the bones in his cheeks, so gently that he thought he'd never felt it. But if Chas could see from your position, he would notice the mindless patterns you were drawing.

"This life is fleeting, you know? Nothing will last, you, me, our friends, family. Even the things we make won't be here forever. It’s just that...something about you bends those rules."

And you grinned, again, with a particular intent. One of your brows rose a fraction as if you were sharing an inside joke with him. Though, he was looking at a puzzle. You were hard to read, always were. Chas got used to it in the time he spent with you. He chalks it up to the way you handled yourself

—but you were never this much.

This night you were some sort of the zenith of riddles. What were you hiding?

A million things could have been behind it. Chas was musing but he said nothing. To be honest with himself, he hadn't been able to find an adequate reply.

You leaned in real close, just like the dream, only, your words danced on his lips.

"There's something…thriving inside you Chas. I think it will last until the end of time."

You pulled back and came another crack of thunder. This one lingered and stretched wide above your heads. Nothing else could be heard between you two.

“That’s why I hold so much respect for you, there’s no one else like you.”

Chas exhaled a long bated breath, disconnecting your eye contact.

He'd begun to feel nauseated. He let his head fall back to look up at the sky, hoping that the cool air would settle him back down. Chas held his focus upward, steadfastly, while your fingers found purchase in his hair.

Eventually, there was a wet smack, a light tap in the middle of his forehead. Then there were more, dozens landing on the balcony floor and the tops of your heads. The sprinkle escalated to a blanket of rain.

He could feel you steal a tender look at his dripping face. You were whimsical when you said it,

"Looks like rain."

➽─────────────❥

Chas placed a glance at his dark surroundings, seeking the nearest interstate. He picked up sporadic wanderers. The tops of their heads glowed under the amber streetlights.

Around each bend of the winding streets there seemed to be someone. Upon his departure from the city, a small group of young adults flickered in his rearview before they disappeared into the gloom.

He wondered why his hands shook, why he couldn't seem to steady them on the wheel. He would tighten his grip on the leather, but there was a shiver each time he removed his fingers to glide through his hair.

Chas had a handle on how to drive this vehicle, he was sure of it. So he turned the volume dial on the radio up.

He rolled the windows down, let the air flood the space and grab at his skin. The wind whipped sheets of paper about in the back seat, spilling them out the opened windows and leaving them forgotten on the empty highway.

He leaned his elbow on the metal rim of the window, taking hold of the wheel in his right hand.

There are neon green signs. Cities and attractions approach in random distances: a quarter of a mile, two and a half. He wants to eyeball what is to offer. What was listed on the signs again? He squints as he gazes down the stretch of the road. He had passed by those placards quicker than he realized.

Chas would dwell, but—did it matter?

Listen, he could drive all night. He didn't have a clue what was to be on the other side of this city, the state. This foreign land and all of the new wonders within it, Chas was a newcomer. He'd been too occupied in the past few days to sight-see.

Yet the gas tank was full. He had nothing to call his attention, nothing to fasten him whatsoever. He could do as he pleased as if he was on the stretch of a vacation. He was.

The boy was just passing through.

He went underneath an overpass, another city limit was swiftly approaching. Indubitably, he did not recognize the name.

The melody of a song comes in from the speaker, and Chas reminisces for a spell.

➽─────────────❥

"What are we?" he asked while you were busying yourself with unknotting his tie.

The sun was falling behind the clouds, and in that old room where he was beckoned Chas saw pieces of dust dance by your head.

Your uneven breaths pushed them away.

Then those very breaths were captured in the juncture of his neck. You had removed the constructing fabric from his collar, kissing down and down, until you couldn't reach past the ridge of his collarbone. Little pink marks were to soon rise in the aftermath.

His eyes slid shut when you reached to untuck the shirt from his belt.

"What do you mean?"

Chas inched into the fog between your knees, not helping his fingers to rid the fabric from your skin. You twisted, sliding your bottom further on the surface of an old table, rattling about books and trinkets.

You took the time to unzip your jacket. Beads of sweat accumulated on your neck. His eyes took in a droplet flowing down and vanishing under your uniform. He wet his lower lip and his palms fell to the tops of your thighs.

You were red-hot, burning him up. How does he say this?

"I mean...what are we? You and I."

Butterflies chewed at the lining of his stomach. He was more anxious than he had ever remembered, skin clammy and sticky but you wouldn't have known the difference.

There had been an understanding, yet the line began to blur during the weeks to months between you two. He would feel sure with himself, confident in what he was feeling. Then you would do something that shatters all that.

Under those thick lashes, he met the color of your eyes. There was an expression that was light as air, almost too broad. Even more weight flowed into his gut, seeing the ludic curvature to the corner of your lip.

You wound your fingers over the back of his neck and brought his mouth to yours. There was a vibration coming from your lungs, the familiar melody of your laugh.

You pulled away here and there, murmuring,

"We're just friends, yeah?"

Chas was brought so close, he thought he would fall into the table. He made a move to nod his head, humming a low confirmation. “Yeah.” He knew that, but…

His lips were suddenly released. The tip of your nose brushed along his, and for a second or two, you shared the same air.

You grasped him with your other hand, trailing more wet spots down his chin, surely picking up the small pricks of hair there. When you reached that point where his pulse lied—he stumbled, hips falling forward.

He wasn't able to control what arose from his throat. You were the same. Chas pressed onward and your voices were laced with hushed release, both echoing into the empty room.

Wider, your thighs opened. His hands were rehearsed, shifting the most sensitive spot on your skin, taking hold, and lifting.

He dug into you to the point where his belly touched yours, forgetting what his last thought had been. Until he could hear you, quietly, teeth grazing the shell of his ear,

"We're friends who like to do this."

➽─────────────❥

Over and over and over again. It had become more than an occasional blip, ignoring the importance of where he was or what he was doing at the time. What if he was in class? During a meeting with someone higher up? Or when he’s staring at a wall?

He thought about you far more than a friend should have. Much more than what should have been the understanding. (Whatever that originally was.) He lost the ability to distinguish what was, what you originally wanted out of this companionship.

And did you come to realize it?

There was an unsettling feeling inside of him. Christ, you saw past the veil he strung up, after all that time. The lingering looks, the book with your name scrawled in it about a thousand times or more. You stared at his boyish face and you were appalled by what you saw. Obsessive, wretched, flawed.

Well, then it made sense then, why it went the way it had or why it went at all.

Everything seemed to be flowing for the longest time, flowing continuously in the same direction. You still took his hand in yours and you still laughed in a dulcet tone.

You'd tugged him out of his dorm room late at night after everything was quiet. He was greedy and drank everything up.

He could take it away by the last words you spoke to him, the last image of your face, or the weight of your voice in his ears. It was complicated, and he couldn't understand—

"I’m not staying in this town anymore. I want to get out, be exposed to more than this."

Chas heard the song fade and the radio station shift to another. He had taken a right after departing from the highway, following the path of an old Mazda.

The street lamps were softer than the city he left from, the temperature of each bulb matched, never flickering. Chas didn't sense unease, no. The atmosphere of this place was placid. There hadn't been much wind, the strange sounds of the night.

The number of people out was scarce, (unlike the last town). If you could see someone out and about they moved rapidly, almost like they rushed to get home.

He shifted his eyesight and noticed the windows of a few businesses illuminate. The smell of grease and meat wafted up to his nose.

Light was approaching from the east, the dark indigo sky transformed to violet.

There was another hour before morning came and the boy still couldn’t figure out where to go.

He wasn’t running, nothing of the sort was in his mind. Only the feeling of finally moving, getting outside, and feeling the fresh air on his skin. He saw new, experienced new. He believes that, well, if he drives enough maybe he will start to feel better.

Ah, he wonders what you would think. ‘Where would they say I should go?’

He can hear your voice in his ears, saying ‘Go. Go as far as you can until you feel satisfied with what you see. Find something beautiful.’

And, Chas wants to stop to think about what that entails, what you would have considered beautiful. You were particular, a little unusual with your selections. He remembers how you collected beer bottle caps with a specific font on each one, or your affinity for yellow-colored notepaper.

He struggles with his memory for a moment or two, finding the car taking a left at the light.

He looks up and the Mazda is no longer in front of him, the multi-laned road is revealed to be empty and he is the only one cruising west. In the smudged mirror, he saw no sign of headlights, no people, no sudden movement.

The reflection of the town behind him only shone back, with the barely noticeable sway of trees.

In the air, he can smell something faint. At the start, he can’t place his finger on it. What and how to describe it? He wants to say that it reminds him of his grandparents, their amazing home with the high stone archways, the land stretching to the ocean.

That’s what hits him, the sea. He can envision the waves crash and pull back now, how hypnotic it was to him as a child. The color was bluer than anything else.

The scent of the brine and the fish grow stronger as he passes several neighborhood streets. Soon enough he starts to believe that he’s found his answer for you.

➽─────────────❥

He met you in a lone part of the local library, where the walls saw thousands of students from decades past and were in dire need of renovating.

It was private, though, that's why you wrote the location down on a sliver of paper and pressed it into his hand. He was distracted when you had, eyes probably glued to a book or two.

But he didn't forget. There was a peculiar way that you didn't stop. You didn't tell Chas where you were going. When he brought his eyes up to the world around him you had been long gone.

So he was there, a hand rubbing at his ironed blazer and the other holding the paper up. He stood outside and double-checked the number on the building before walking up the front steps.

His eyes were taking in all that you had on the table. There were more stacks of books than he was able to count, more sheets of paper, pencils, note cards. On the floor close by your feet were crumpled up sheets. That was when he saw your damp cheeks and the mess your hair was in.

You removed your head from your hands and the look you gave was reminiscent of someone lost.

“I can’t figure this out, Chas. This paper...it’s due tomorrow morning and I don’t understand what to put down.” (You had no one else to go to.)

Chas had been unsure in that instant, without a clue of why. ‘Think’ he would tell himself. Your eyes were so dim when he peered right in them he couldn’t help but hold his breath.

He remained stiff in front of you. In his hand resided the directions to the library, but it slipped and fell to the floor. Your tears dripped from your cheeks and landed on the crumpled paper, mixing with the ink on the surface of the pages, staining them.

It took a moment for the boy to move his legs, his eyebrows rose and pinched together as he crouched close. To your left was where you opened up, his hand took hold of the pencil from your hand and set it down.

Your chin was nudged upward between his index and thumb. And right then he could see past your reddened eyes, “Hey...hey hush now. I’m right here. It’s going to be alright.”

“Is it?” You softly bit. “I feel so dumb, I can’t see the answers right now.”

You brought the back of your hand up to rub at your eyes, and Chas frowned. He glanced at all of the papers on your desk, all of the scribbled words. To his knowledge, he understood that you were turning in a final paper.

His last day had been that day, only earlier and involving math and science. But that didn’t mean that Chas wouldn’t know the feeling you had in your chest. All the pressure building up. He loathed watching your body sink in that chair.

The details and the guidelines for your assignment would have to be determined next, and he questioned you what it all entailed.

“Well…” and you sighed. You carried on telling him about what your Professor wanted, stopping here and there to close your eyes to gather your thoughts. You spend a few minutes doing this, not catching that Chas moved you so that you resided on his lap.

It’s not like you never did this before, there had been only one chair in the room. The boy wasn’t even sure what he had done then, all his attention was focused on your face, the papers on the table.

He remembered you mumbling a sorry into the fabric of his sweater, something about how you should have looked for a second chair but he shushed you again.

This time you let go, you let all of your weight onto him and burrowed yourself closer. He scooted up to the table without any effort. Chas let you watch while he gathered a fresh sheet of paper and a pen. His left hand rubbed up your back, resting there.

In your ear, he whispered, “Let’s see what I can do.”

➽─────────────❥

He had approached an intersection adjacent to the entryway of Leobourg Bay. No other vehicle shared the road with him up until that point. The radio falls silent, as with the rest of the world outside his window. He tilts his head and, the wind didn’t blow, the trees halted their swaying.

A warm-colored light starts to shine, spreading over the car and blanketing his face. Chas takes a breath past his lips, gathering it in to fill every cavity of his lungs. The thumping stays as he enters the crossroad, and in his mind’s eye, he can hear you again.

Another moment passes by until his lids flutter shut, fingers sliding from the wheel of the car.

➽─────────────❥

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➽─────────────❥

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