#@breaking bad writers i fixed your depressing show x | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

ultraintrovertedgryffindor · 3 years

Note

hello my favorite writer it is me again i was wondering if i could have another will imagine (gn as usual) and could it be about a reader who feels insecure about being wills partner because they’re still working on being famous and feel like they’re mooching off of wills fame and end up pushing him away slightly and it’s angsty, but ends in fluff with will finally telling them he loves them and reassuring kisses <3

Favorite writer?? You flatter me, darlin', but thank you!

Also, so sorry this took so long! I've been really unmotivated/lazy lately and I wanted to write this as perfect as I possibly could. Also also, ya know how the Powerpuff Girls were made? Sugar, spice, and everything nice but Chemical X was added accidently? Yeah, this is that, but replace Chemical X with a lot of angst. My bad.😬

WARNING: Depressing themes throughout

~~~~~~~~~~

It wasn't often you felt insecure, but you figured it was just one of those days.

You hadn't been in many blockbuster films or tv shows, you were still working hard on your career. You loved the indie projects you worked on, you loved any job where you could act. It was your passion, after all.

You couldn't help feel a little bit insecure when your partner, Will, was where you aspired to be your whole life. He was brilliant, working with amazing people like Tom Hardy and Leonardo DiCaprio. So early in his career too. You looked up to Will so much, praying that you'd be just as talented as him one day. But you knew it wouldn't be easy, acting isn't exactly the easier job in the world, you knew it would take a lucky break.

You always joked that maybe you should work as a waiter in some restaurant, knowing that Edward Norton got his first movie role while working in such a place, only to move on to work beside the amazing Richard Gear.

It was just one day you felt bad about your career, but then it started to snowball into anxiety and depression. It got to the point where it was all you could think about, especially when you were out with Will. And you could tell that he knew something was up, the thousand yard stare that you often had was something that couldn't really go unnoticed.

But for the most part, you acted like everything was fine.

You hated that you let your insecurity pile on and on like this, it normally was something you could handle. You don't know what came over you, but you found yourself scrolling for hours looking at comments on any of your posts. Most people were supportive of you and Will's relationship, and you were thankful for that. But of course, there are always a few bad apples.

The wonderful and lovely, supportive comments were many, outweighing the hate by miles. But just one negative comment could throw you off, ruining your day.

You wished you could just focus on the positive, but unfortunately, that's not how brains are designed. It always has to point out a flaw, find that one odd man out, find the error in the system. Usually, most of those errors can be fixed. You spent your entire life trying to get people to like you, being somewhat of a pushover and a people pleaser, disregarding your own self in favor of praise. So seeing people online hating you for no other reason besides being with Will, seeing that they might never change their minds, it was devastating.

You knew that the hate would usually come from obsessed fans who must've been jealous of you, and you could understand that and it was fine. You remembered the younger years of being jealous of a person who dated your crush, it was something that most people grow out of thankfully. You could get over those comments, saying you weren't good looking enough or not fit enough, any comments about your appearance. The ones that really got to you was the comments about your "horrible" personality.

It was odd, people saying awful things about you when they didn't even know you at all. Most of the contradictory was were amusing. There was a point in time after your relationship with Will was made public, where you'd feel to nervous about going to red carpet events with him. The comments would say, "Y/n's not there with Will? What an unsupportive partner they must be!" or anything similar. But when you started to go with him sometimes, the comments would shift dramatically.

"Y/n's a gold digger."

"They're just using Will for his fame."

"He deserves better than that snake."

It hurt, more than you'd admit. You told Will it didn't bother you that much, just wrote it off that it's normal. Then, you never talked about it again.

You felt awful, every single day. Thoughts of self doubt clouding your brain constantly, thinking, "Am I really deserving of such a kind person like Will?" No matter how you looked at it, the answer was always no.

You started to feel like you shouldn't even be with Will anymore. There was most likely someone else out there, an actor with more talent and more self-sufficient than you were.

You and Will had been together for a couple years, you loved him so much, but when he asked you to move in with him, you said you weren't ready. The biggest lie you ever told, and you instantly regretted it when you saw the disappointed look on his face. But being the gentleman that he is, he said it was completely okay and that there was no pressure.

You absolutely didn't deserve him.

Every time Will asked you to go out with him, you always came up with an excuse to stay home. You felt too anxious about being out in public, the thought of a fan seeing you with Will brought you to the verge of a panic attack. You became distant, trying to distract yourself by throwing yourself into your work. You rarely saw Will anymore, and you knew if you kept up with how you were acting on your insecurity, you'd lose him. But you couldn't bring yourself to try and talk to him about it, you felt too embarrassed.

From Will's point of view, he thought you were becoming distant because of him. He wracked his mind trying to think what was it that he did to make you spend less time with him? At first, he thought, maybe you just needed some space. There were times where he needed to be alone, just like everyone does. But it felt like it was going on for too long. Every time he wanted to take you out somewhere nice, you'd politely decline and you'd opted for a night in.

There came a point where enough was enough, Will was determined to find out what was going on with you.

You stared at your cellphone, the screen lighting up with a picture of Will along with your set ringtone. You sighed, you really didn't feel like answering. You knew you should, but you couldn't bring yourself to. A feeling of dread washed over you, you didn't want him to think you hated him, yet you still couldn't. You rang your fingers through your hair, anxiously scratching your scalp harshly.

Your screen darkened, following with a notification, voicemail and text. "Y/n, what's going on? I've been trying...", you couldn't listen anymore.

"I'm sorry, Will..." You whispered to yourself, wrapping yourself up tightly in a blanket.

You almost screamed when you heard a rapid knock on your door, quickly tensing up when you heard Will call out from outside. "Y/n?"

You wanted to fucking scream.

"I know you're in there, just, please, talk to me."

The desperation in his voice forced you to get up from your couch, tossing away your cozy blanket with a huff. You shakily reached out and opened the door, Will's concerned face filling your view. "...hi."

Will chuckled bitterly. "Hi? That's it? You haven't talked to me in days. What's going on, love?"

"Nothing!" You explained, plastering on a fake smile with a chuckle.

Will smiled sadly. "You're lying." He said simply, pushing his way past you into your home.

"Will, please, I'm not up to talking right now."

"You know, I want to respect your wishes, I really do. But I feel that I've been patient. I've been trying to support you in any way that I can, but I can't help if I don't know what's going on." He sat down on your couch, pleading for you to sit next to him with his eyes. "We used to be open and honest with each other about everything. Tell me what's going on so I can help you."

You huffed, running your hands over your face. "It's not that simple..."

Will casted his gaze to your wooden floor, squeezing his hands together and taking a deep shaky breath. "Is it...is it because it's something I did?"

"What?"

"You're shutting me out. It's because of me, isn't it? I did something-"

"No." You quickly exclaimed, rushing over to his side when you heard his voice waver, taking ahold of one of his hands. "No, it's not you, I promise."

"Then...why? Why are you pushing me away?" Will sighed, biting his lip to keep himself from crying. "Do you not love me anymore?"

"I love you, Will, more than I can express." You chuckled bitterly. "It's hard to talk about."

Will brought a hand up to your face, gently brushing a freshly fallen tear off your face. "You can tell me anything, Y/n, anything."

You smiled weakly, bringing his hand you were holding up to your lips and kissed his knuckles softly. "Okay..." You took a deep breath.

"Take your time, love."

"Being with you, brings me so much happiness that it feels like I'm dreaming. You're so...amazing, and honestly the best and most kind person I've ever met. And I? I feel like I'm nobody."

"Y/n..."

"Compared to others, I'm no one. Just another person trying to live out their dreams that are so far fetched that it doesn't even seem possible to even come close to achieving them. You're so self assured that acting is what you were born to do and you're so talented. I envy you, and I feel so guilty feeling that way. Sometimes I feel like I wasn't meant to be an actor. I feel like...I'm trying to run towards my goal, but every time I make progress, the goal moves farther and farther away until I can't even see it anymore."

"Y/n," Will started softly, "I know how you feel. I've felt that way about my career too. I always wondered if there was going to be a light at the end of the tunnel. Yes, you can work as hard as you humanly can, but it also takes luck. You just have to be at the right place at the right time sometimes. That's why they call it a lucky break, ya know." He smiled, making you giggle tearfully.

"I know, but that's not all." You frowned. "I know you said, it's just better to ignore what the internet has to say, but...I was looking some of our comments a few months ago. And...I just went down a fuckin' rabbit hole. I know I always say that hate comments don't bother me, but...they do. They really do, and I let them get to me. I'm sorry."

"No, darling, I'm sorry. I didn't see what was really going on when I should've."

"You have nothing to be sorry for, Will. I thought I was stronger than this."

Will quickly brought you close to his chest, wrapping around your torso with one arm, the other gently cupping your jaw. "Hey, you are the strongest person I know, okay? Don't think you're weak just because you're feeling something that every human on planet earth feels. Whatever those comments said, there's no one I'd rather be with than you." He leaned forward and kissed you gently, pressing his forehead against yours.

"I felt so embarrassed, Will. I wished I had talked to you sooner."

"It doesn't matter now. You opened up and I'm proud of you for that. I love you so much. And I promise to try my very hardest to never let you feel that way again."

~~~~~~~~~~

hope you enjoyed, @fcvcritecrime ! 🖤

#will poulter #will poulter imagine #will poulter x reader

119 notes · View notes

verobatto · 3 years

Text

Destiel Chronicles

Vol. CXXIII

It was a love story from the very beginning

Missing Each Other

(15x06/15x07/15x08)

Hello my friends! We are still walking over the last Destiel breakup. I'm gonna talk in this meta about how they miss each other even when they're mad at each other. Because they're two dumbasses in love.

Remember this is a summary from my season 15 metas. You can find all the links from these episodes here: X, X, X, X, X, X, X, X, X, X, X and X.

Come Back Home

Previous episode we saw a visual reference that linked Dean with a fish. Now in episode 15x06 we have Castiel trying to catch a (hard) fish and walking around a fishing ship, mentioning Dean to let us know, the symbolism about that sneaking fish. Castiel misses him.

Another important visual element in this episode was the lady reading a book that pictures the Destiel breakup we are witnessing and writers are making it one of the centric topics.

I'm talking about the Destiel color coded lady, with a hint of pink (happiness)...

...reading a novel titled: "Lovers Quarrel".

An now, let's talk about the awkward Destiel phonecall.

Let me tell you that Dean didn't have to ask to talk with Castiel when he was speaking with the sheriff, but he did it anyway. Why? Because he missed Castiel.

Even so, he won't recognize it. Because he is still mad, and Castiel is still mad, then why is Dean asking for him?

Because he needed to scold him about not answering Sam's messages. Because Sam is messaging him, but Dean is not.

And then...

Look at this:

DEAN: Would you put my agent on the phone, please?

He can't lose the opportunity to talk with Cas.

SHERIFF ROY [handing the phone to Cas]: He wants to talk to you.

CASTIEL: Hello?

He wasn't happy about it, at all. As a parallel with that phonecall in season 14, in which Castiel said it was good to hear Dean's voice, this time it isn't.

DEAN: Cas. Sam's been trying to call you.

CASTIEL: I know.

DEAN: Did you check his messages?

CASTIEL: Nope.

Dean is behaving very childish here, and Castiel isn't checking the Winchester's messages, because he really wanted to move on from them, from Dean.

DEAN: Right. Smart. Why would you? Look, I don't know if you care or not, but, uh... God... Chuck... is back on the board, so watch yourself. And check your damn messages.

After this, Dean suddenly cut the call, and Castiel looks very upset about that. But thing about these words Dean told him has a hidden message:

And then... "Chuck is back in the game." Is the same as if Dean wanted to say HEY CAS YOU LEFT BECAUSE CHUCK WAS GONE, WELL, HE IS BACK, SO... YOU HAVE TO COME BACK BECAUSE CHUCK IS BACK. NOT BECAUSE I'M MISSING YOU SO MUCH AND I'M SO DEPRESSED SINCE YOU LEFT, BUT BECAUSE CHUCK IS BACK.

That's so Dean, right?

A miscellaneous point I repeated so many times in all my metas from this season was, Castieo was related to people dressing green and pink and Dean with people dressing blue and pink: THIS IS BECAUSE THEY'RE EACH OTHER'S HAPPINESS.

Another symbolic reference, this time related to Dean's behavior, it's the following piece of dialogue between Dean and Sam at the beginning of the scene:

DEAN: You know they still put, um, jokes on the backs of these things. Listen to this one... What's round and bad-tempered? "A vicious circle." (...)

This is self referencing over here, my friends, because is talking about how Dean is stuck in his toxicity, and his way to "solve" his problems and repress his feelings m is a vicious circle that never ends, and he's playing in the same line, and lying to himself. The bad temper, is a reflection of Toxic Dean, and he's trapped in this vicious circle, and he needs to MOVE ON to make things changing.

And because we had people moving in this episode, it's another symbolic analogy to what Dean must do to grow up.

Bi!Dean episode and Dean's attempt to fix things with Castiel

Episode 15x07 was full of Bi!Dean subtext.

Dean is praised by a male sheriff, and we had a waitress flirting with him. And Dean rejecting her all the time. Why? Because he behaves as a married guy, married with Castiel, if you know what I mean.

We had the whole bi flag lighting when Dean was singing on the stage, and this whole sexual tension with his old friend, Castiel's mirror.

Jumping from Bi!Dean to the Destiel breakup, we had this symbolic dialogue:

When Dean found the girl at the bar, he interrogates her, but Lee, his friend, called him, and the words he says: "She went without saying goodbye?" "Well, maybe she deserved it."

This was related to episode 15x03 when Castiel walked away from Dean. It felt as if he didn't say goodbye to Dean, 'but maybe Dean deserved it.'

Keeping the drama here, we had Castiel calling Dean the whole episode and Dean not answering the phone.

Castiel came back to the bunker because he had a plan, but when things doesn't work well, he calls Dean... A lot of times. But Dean didn't answer... Just like a cheating husband. Cas lost his temper and he even shouts WHERE ARE YOU!? At the phone.

Avoiding the whole Swayze's Bar and Rocky's Bar parallels you can find in my meta link on the top of this analysis, let's just go to the 'Lovers Quarrel scene and enjoy the failed attempt from Dean to fix things with Cas... à la Dean.

Gift credit @agusvedder

When Dean appeared at the bunker, Castiel's face is about surprise, relief, and a hint of heart eyes, Dean is acting as if nothing had happened between them, just like I expected to occur, because is his way to avoid things. But this time it won't work, because CAS recalls immediately Dean's hard words and the last call, and he recalls that THEY DIDN'T PART FRIENDS (this quote from episode 7x17 when they came back to see each other after the break up in season 6).

That's why I said Dean is trying to fix things à la Dean here, just acting as if nothing happened. It's the coward way to try to approach the love of your life.

Awkward, horrible and wonderful, Awkward silence. The romantic tension here! Even my dog saw it. This was deliberately written and performing to show what it is: ROMANTIC TENSION.

This was gold... because Dean's face is yelling: Uh, oh, wait, don't go, we still can chat a little... oh wait, right. Things are still bad... got it.

So, Cas changed his face, and he just threw a few words, and leaves, quickly. Dean senses this, and he just grimaced, okay... What did you expect, Dean? Things are not good. You need to use your words!

Imagine their hearts running fast, dry mouth, knowing they love each other so much and they missed each other so much. They're finally in the same room, but things are not good. Castiel is very hurt and Dean can't spell the magic words.

And now, it his wasn't enough Destiel pining for you... we had this last scene:

Gifset credit @agusvedder

Dean stares at Castiel, and Castiel feels that look, but he didn't look back at Dean. This is because Castiel is trying to show Dean how much he hurted him. The Destiel eye-fuck/eye-love making has been always their way of intimate communication. Well. Castiel cut it off here. Just like Dean did with that phonecall.

Time to Fix things. Time for Purgatory 2.0

The whole episode 15x08 showed how broken were Destiel. Dean and Castiel were shown in divided, separated, in all the frames.

We also had this...

Gif credit @agusvedder

Castiel didn't touch Dean to heal him FOR THE FIRST TIME. This scene was very meaningful to show things are not good.

We also had the scene with Rowena, in which they were sitting far away from each other, another empty seat in the middle, and Rowena noticing this, and obviously, giving that married couple a good speech. Almost yelling at them to fix their mess.

So, if Dean and Castiel had to fix their relationship, what better than go to Purgatory again. The place where Dean realized he was in love with Castiel. Because it was pure, and his feelings and thoughts alined into one spot: THE LOVE HE FEELS FOR THAT ANGEL.

After this scene, Dean and Castiel spoke with Michael, and did you know what Michael says in one of his lines?:

ADAM: What about 'I'm sorry'?

LEGENDARY MY FRIENDS! The whole Universe was yelling at Dean to use his words and ask for forgiveness to his angel, to fix things with him. That's why karma sent them back to Purgatory.

Miscellaneous: two things I want to point about Saileen: they were mirroring Destiel the whole time, even the goodbye scene and even Dean calling Eileen as the hot woman perfect for Sam, that understands him, it was a reference to Castiel, the perfect man for Dean, that understands him and is pretty hot.

Second is the fact that Castiel cockblocked Sam and Eileen. Again, karma. 🤣

To Conclude:

The 'Lovers Quarrel' was shown in the show as one of the centric topics. GA could see and be aware of the ROMANTIC TENSION between these two.

But don't worry, the breakup is coming to it's end in the next episode. One of the most beautiful Destiel scenes, and is happening in Purgatory of love 2.0.

I hope you liked this meta, see you in the next one!

Tagging @magnificent-winged-beast @emblue-sparks @weird-dorky-little-d @michyribeiro @whyjm @legendary-destiel @a-bit-of-influence @thatwitchydestielfan @misha-moose-dean-burger-lover @lykanyouko @evvvissticante @savannadarkbaby @dea-stiel @poorreputation @bre95611 @thewolfathedoor @charlottemanchmal @neii3n @deathswaywardson @followyourenergy @dean-is-bi-till-i-die @hekatelilith-blog @avidbkwrm @anarchiana @dickpuncher365 @vampyrosa @authorsararayne @mybonsai1976 @love-neve-dies @dustythewind @wayward-winchester67 @angelwithashotgunandtrenchcoat @trashblackrainbow @deeutdutdutdoh @destiel-shipper-11 @larrem88 @charmedbycastiel @ran-savant @little-crazy-misha-minion @samoosetheshipper

@shadows-and-padlocked-hearts @mishtho @dancingtuesdaymorning @nerditoutwithbooks @mikennacac73 @justmeand-myinsight @idontwantpeopletoknowmyname @teddybeardoctor @pepevons @helevetica @dizzypinwheel @horsez2002 @qanelyytha

@destielle @spnsmile @shippsblog @robot-feels @superlock-in-the-tardis @superduckbatrebel @belacoded @madronasky @anon-non2 @cea1996 @lisafu02 @asphodelesauvage @deancasgirl777

If you want to be added or removed from this list, just let me know.

If you wanna read the previous metas from season 15, here you have the links:

Vol. CXXI, CXXII.

Buenos Aires, July 25th 2021 12:47 PM

#destiel #destiel chronicles #destiel meta #supernatural meta #season 15 #15x06 #15x07 #15x08 #destiel breakup

20 notes · View notes

jawritter · 4 years

Text

My Best Friend..

Request: hi I have dean x reader request! the reader and dean are friends with benefits but recently she’s just been down in the dumps and just wants some platonic affection and not sex. as the writer you can do what u want but could you add Dean playing with the reader's hair? I have a weakness for it lol thanks!

Warnings: Smut, unprotected sex, unrequited/requited feelings, Language, angst, fluff, that’s about it.

Pairing: Dean x Reader

Word Count: 2401

A/N: As always all mistakes are mine! Please don’t copy my work! Feedback is golden! Hope you enjoy this one!

Want more? Check out my Masterlist!

**MASTERLIST**

Dean's lips crashed into yours as soon as you crossed the threshold of your room back in the bunker. Hands roaming your body as he backs you to your bed. His lips left little marks along the way as he trailed his way down your collar bone, grinding his impressive erections against your core as he presses his body to yours, holding you to the mattress that he'd just laid you down on.

Little moans and soft breaths filling the room as he rips your underwear to the side, to be wired up and full of adrenaline to even properly remove your clothing. He'd gotten your pants off, but lost patients after that.

One hand leaves your body as he roughly rips his belt open and shoves his pants and boxers down to his knees.

"Fuck Y/N. need you," he grunted against your neck as he rutted his already leaking tip against your waiting core.

Your body accepts him like he belonged there, just like it had done so many times before. Dean didn't give you much time before he sat his brutal pace, driving you both very quickly toward the edge. The sounds of moans and his name fill the room as he pounds himself into you over and over again until his pace starts to falter.

"Fuck Y/N, cum with me, baby girl," he gritted out as he snaked his hand between your bodies, finding your swollen bundle of nerves with ease, and rubbing harsh circles as he continued to pound into you at a matching pace; winding the coil tighter and tighter in your belly, as he brought you up higher and higher with him.

With one more thrust of his hips, you were both tumbling over the edge together. Your hands flew to his shoulders as you try and ground yourself, your orgasm is so strong that you saw stars. Dean slowly pumped himself in you, working you both through it until you both had regained control of your bodies, leaving you both a panting, sweating mess, and a pile of human limbs on top of the bed.

Just like he always does after a hunt, Dean gets up slowly after pulling out of you, fixing his clothes, and buckling his belt. He turned and looks at you before he walked out of the door, giving you a tight-lipped smile as he made his way to the kitchen to find whatever he would be drinking tonight. You had returned his smile, hiding the fact that inside your heart was breaking.

Dean and yourself had been, "friends with benefits,'' so to speak ever since you moved into the bunker. You'd known the Winchesters for years before ever moving into the bunker, having grown up in the life. You remember them even when you were all just teenagers. When your father died last year Dean had offered to come live and hunt with them, safety in numbers, and you accepted because you were lost. You had nowhere else to go. It was the logical thing to do.

It wasn't so bad at first. When either of you needed a stress release, or just needed to scratch that itch, as they say, you turned to each other. You trusted each other. It worked out just fine when it all started. Dean needed to blow off some steam, and you needed Dean.

As time when on, and no matter how hard you tried to stop it, or deny it, or even fight it, you had developed feelings for the tall hunter. Now it was too late. He had your heart whether he knew it or not. The problem was, this was all you ever got from Dean. He wasn't a very affectionate sort of person. He did what he came to do, then left, that was just his way. Sometimes you felt like to him you were no more than an easy lay, and that's why he kept you around.

Let's be honest.

You'd never be able to keep up with the boys as far as strength and ability when it came to hunting. They were Winchesters. They were the best. All you seemed to be good for is a traveling fuck buddy for Dean. At least that's what it felt like to you anyway.

Getting up you made your way to the shower, wiping at your face harshly. Dean would never feel the same way you felt about him. Still, that didn't stop the want, or the need to be close to him in more ways than just sex. Intimacy wasn't always about sex, and you craved more of him.

You don't know exactly when this depressed and down feeling started, but God you wished it would go away.

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

Two weeks went by as they usually do, and you still weren't able to shake that feeling. That hole in your chest, that loneliness. Dean hadn't tried to come into you again. Tonight though you knew he would because you were currently sitting in the back of the impala, having left the last hunt you just finished with the boys and headed back to Lebanon. Dean was all knotted up, you could see it in the way he held his broad shoulders as he drove. His eyes would shift back and forth from the rearview mirror to stare at you to the road. He didn't have to even say anything, you knew what he wanted, you just didn't know if this time you could do that for him.

You had felt so low, that you knew if you let yourself go there again, you'd never pick yourself up off the floor. The problem was you just didn't know how to tell him. Dean was your best friend, you didn't want to lose that at all. Even if you'd never be more than friends you needed him, just like he needed you. He was your crutch, and you were his. There was no way around it.

When the impala finally pulled into the bunker, and you all got out and threw your duffle bags over your shoulders. You made your way straight for your room, locking the door behind you, changing into one of Dean's oversized shirts that fit you more like a dress than a shirt, you crawled into your bed and covered yourself up.

You knew that Dean would just pick the lock. There were really no points in locks on doors when it came to living with hunters, it was just pointless. Still, it would slow him down, and hopefully deter him, maybe he'd think you were just asleep.

You lay there for no more than 30 minutes before you heard him try to open the door. When he saw it was locked he didn't even bother to knock. You could hear the distinct sounds of the lock being picked and the door swinging open. You laid there as still as possible as you felt the bed dip, and the covers pull back, letting you know Dean was sliding himself in behind you. He immediately starts to run his fingers up your thigh, burying his face in your neck as he kissed and nipped at the flesh there, not being at all shy about his intentions with the erection that was currently pressing against your ass.

"Y/N, Baby, I know you're not asleep," he whispers against the shell of your ear.

You didn't say anything. just rolled tighter into the covers and pressed him away with your hand. Dean sat there stiff as aboard, confused by your rejection. You had never once told him no before.

Reaching over Dean turns on the bedside lamp so that he could see you, checking to make sure you're not injured, and he didn't know about it. That was the only reason he could formulate at that moment that said you wouldn't want to be with him. He was more than a little hurt and looking for some sort of justification for your rejections.

Finally letting out a deep sigh you roll over and are met with a pair of very hurt looking green eyes staring back at you.

"Did I do something I don't know about?" Dean asked you, his voice tense, stress set deep in his shoulders.

The man thrived off of blaming himself for everything and you knew that. So you knew that you were going to have to talk this out with him, as much as you'd rather not.

"No Dean, you didn't do anything wrong, it's me. I'm just not in a good headspace right now," you tell him, rolling back over to face the wall.

Dean didn't leave like you were hoping that he would. Instead, he pulled himself closer to you in almost a spooning position, something he'd never done before.

"We all get down like that sometimes Y/N, this life is hard, but you don't need to push the people that care about you away, let me help you. Tell me what to do and I'll do it, but don't reject me and shut me out," Dean said, waiting for you to say something.

He didn't want to overstep his bounds, and he was still feeling the sting of being told no, so you knew he wasn't going to let this go easy.

You both just sat there in silence for a moment, neither of you saying anything. Dean was giving you some time to put your thoughts together. He could almost see the wheels turning in your head.

"Dean, I want you to answer me honestly about something. No matter how bad you think it might hurt my feelings or whatever," you said, turning to find him staring at you, concern etched deep in his features.

"Okay."

"Am I more to you than just an easy lay?"

The question seemed to throw him for a moment. All the things that he was expecting to come out of your mouth, that definitely wasn't one of them. He blinked at you a few seconds before realization sat in, and his features softened.

"Is that what you think? Y/N no, I don't see you that way at all. You're my best friend, you're the one that I share everything with. I have feelings for you that go deeper than that even. You know I'm not good with words, and I'm not really good at showing things, I never meant to make you feel like that. I've opened myself up to you more than I think I ever have with anyone. I need you baby, your not just an easy lay,"

Dean reached over and grabbed your hand in his, making little circles with his thumb, it was a small gesture, but even then it made your heart swell.

This is what you needed from him, closeness, intimacy. Not just sex.

"Every time you come in here and we have sex you just leave like I'm nothing. When we're not having sex you act like I'm a piece of furniture. You barely even acknowledge me. Dean If all this is ever going to be between us is an easy lay when you need to blow off some steam I don't know if we can keep doing this."

What you said seemed to have hit Dean hard, but so did the realization of what he'd been doing to you. Dean never was one for words, he never got it right, he always screwed it up getting it out. So he did the only thing he knew to do in that moment to keep you, because losing you was more than he could even fathom. He loved you and losing you would tear him apart.

Reaching over Dean grabbed your face and crashed his lips into yours. Kissing you slowly, tenderly, his tongue exploring your mouth in a way he never had, more care and love was placed in that one kiss than any you'd ever had in your life. By the time he released your face your world was a little fuzzy.

"Y/N, I love you, you are everything to me, I kept my distance because I don't want to freak you out, and make you run away from me. I thought all you wanted was a friend with benefits thing, but if you want more I'm all in for that too."

Laying down on his back Dean pulled your down with him. You slipped your head into the junction of his shoulder and neck, nuzzling down to fit your bodies perfectly together. like you were made for each other. Dean wrapped his arms tightly around you, half rolling onto his side caging you against him.

His body was warm against yours, you felt more safe and secure than you ever had in your life. This is it, this is what you were missing. Dean started to card his fingers through your hair, placing little kisses at random to your lips. Nothing was expected. Nothing was being pushed. He wasn't in a hurry. In fact it didn't look like he was going anywhere. He seemed perfectly content just to be, and that meant more to you than anything you had ever had in your life.

“I love you too, Dean, I always have,” you told him, your eyes are getting heavy. Exhaustion of all the emotions hit you all at once.

“I know Sweetheart, sleep, I’m not going anywhere,” he said, placing a soft kiss to your lips before settling back into his spot, playing with your hair, letting you nuzzle your face into him. You breathe in his scent deeply, letting it envelop you, and wash away all that hurt that you felt, leaving just him, your best friend, your rock, your comfort.

After about an hour while you were dozing asleep tangled up in his arms Dean was still playing with your hair, even though you had fallen into an easy sleep long ago. Dean laid there with his mind on things a hunter really shouldn't be thinking about. A home, a family, an apple pie life.

He wasn't dumb enough to ever dream that it would actually happen that way, but what you didn't know was that if he ever did get out of this life or he died in it, he wanted to do it right here, with his best friend. If he never got to do all those things normal people got to do, that was fine, he'd expected that a long time ago; but whatever he did get to do, as long as it was with you... Well... That was more than enough...

Tag List:

@deanwanddamons @imabitch4jensen @rvgrsbrns @bi-danvers0 @onethirstyunicorn @i-love-superhero @akshi8278 @alanegaming @magssteenkamp

#dean winchester #dean winchester fanfic #dean winchester fanfiction #dean winchester one shot #dean winchester smut #dean winchester x reader #dean winchester x you #dean x reader #dean x you #spn #spn smut #spn fanfiction #spn fic #spn one shot #jensen ackles #jawritter

454 notes · View notes

pizzarollpatrol · 5 years

Text

Fic Rec List #4 2/3/2019

First rec list of 2019! As always, thank to all these beautiful writers for sharing. 40 fics on this list this time. If a link doesn't work, please let me know! I’ll be happy to fix it.

You Don't Have to be Alone by @thottybarnes

Summary: In which Bucky Barnes, a soldier who lost his arm on a peacekeeping mission overseas in Syria is having issues adjusting to being a disabled man in modern times. You, Barnes’ best friend since childhood, take it upon yourself to help him the best you can. Bucky x Reader. —— Oh my god I loved this so much. I just really love your writing.

Safe House by @thottybarnes

Summary: When a mission goes south, you make it a personal mission to make your boyfriend, Bucky Barnes, see the light at the end of the tunnel by taking him to your safe house. Bucky x Reader.

Peppermint Shake by @thottybarnes

Summary: In which Reader happens to buy a peppermint milkshake with a cherry and two straws while on a date with her best guy. 40s!Bucky x Reader—— I love this one so much, its so sweet and endearing.

Hero for Hire by @delicatelyherdreams

Summary: Tired of constantly being sat on the sidelines for missions, Bucky Barnes deciders that he’s going to do his own hero work and office his services to the public as a freelance “hero for hire.” he expects to be asked to rescue cats from threes or help little old ladies cross the street, but he doesn’t expect to get tangled up in your life. He definitely doesn’t expect to fall for you either. But, when you’re a hero for hire, you’ve gotta see the mission through. Bucky x reader. Completed series.—— holy fuck. Y’all, if you only read one fic from this list, read this one!!! Oh my god it is such a ride. I loved this fic with my whole ass heart and I got so freaking invested.

Touch me Tenderly by @delicatelyherdreams

Summary: You’ve never seen his skin, never seen his scars. He’s scared to show them, but maybe all he needs is to feel your tender touch. Bucky x reader.

Day Off by @softlybarnes

Summary: Bucky really wants to take a nap with the reader, but she just wants to read.Bucky x reader. —— Holy crap. This is literally the softest thing I’ve ever read. This is my actual dream, I absolutely loved this and I desperately want this in life. I love how clingy he is and I love how despite how he’s touching her, its still just innocent, grounding touch. I love this fic with my whole ass heart, definitely one of my favorites.

Sad by @softlybarnes

Summary: The reader, who has struggled with depression all her life, slips back into that deep sadness. Bucky is worried and tries his best to help. Bucky x reader. —— I was crying almost the entire time i read this, it’s so beautiful and heartbreaking

Sugar by @softlybarnes

Summary: Bucky survives the war and comes home just a little bit changed. His girl loves him anyway, and she knows exactly how to show it. Bucky x Reader. Smut. —— YOOOOOOOOO. Dude I just love your writing so much, you don’t understand the happiness I feel every time i read one of your fics. I loved this one so much. I love the way to talk to each other and how they carry their relationship.

Casual by @writing-parker

Summary: The reader has been seeing Steve for more than a year now, stuck somewhere between friends with benefits and an actual relationship. He wants to commit to you, but he cant let himself. You overhear a conversation you wish you hadn’t-learning much more about the way Steve feels about you than you ever wanted. Steve Rogers x reader. —— My heart BROKE. Even tho know you see how Steve feels about the reader from his thoughts, I still couldn’t help but hate him. God, this was so good.

Give Him Back by @soopranatural

Summary: The Hulk is not an idiot, he knows when he is needed and he knows when he is not. Bruce Banner x Enhanced!Reader. —— Oh my god. ohmygod ohmygod ohmygod. This is the first Bruce fic I’ve ever read and I feel in love. I love how you characterized Hulk and it was so sweet. This fic definitely left me wanting more Bruce and Hulk fics.

Firefighter!Bucky Drabble by @hootyhoobuckaroo

Summary: If firefighter!Bucky rescued you from a fire, realistically you wouldn’t even know it was him. Bucky x Reader.—— AHHHHHH I never even considered Firefighter!Bucky until now and I can’t stop thinking about it. I loved this sooooo much.

Eggnog by @buckyforbreakfast

Summary: Bucky as a little too much and gets creative with the gingerbread men. Bucky x Reader. —— I know, I know, Christmas passed already but holy crap. I was not about to leave this fic out of the list. Its so cute, I could not contain myself.

Baby by @paradisaicsam

Summary: Different situations in which reader makes Peter flustered by calling him baby. Peter Parker x Reader. —— Oh i loved this one so so much. Its so sweet and endearing.

A Restless Night by @221bshrlocked

Summary: “My room is haunted, so I have to sleep in yours.” Steve x reader. Smut.

Things Change by @fvckingavengers

Summary: After completing a rough mission, Bucky and the reader retreat to her family’s vacation home as a safe house. Bucky x reader.

Effortless by @supernovasandcoronas

Summary: “I’ll be right back” kisses: A puts their hands on B’s shoulders from behind them, where they are sat on the couch. He leads down around, while B turns his head a little, accepting the quick peck. Sam Wilson x reader.

Fresh Eyes by @supernovasandcoronas

Summary: You’re a pharmacist in one of the busiest pharmacies in Brooklyn. When some of the Avengers start picking up their medications from your pharmacy, you know life is about to get infinitely more interesting. Sam Wilson x Poc!Reader

Oxytocin by @supernovasandcoronas

Summary: Touches that may or not lead to something more. Bucky x reader.

Gentle by @invisibleanonymousmonsters

Summary: Y/N has never seen Bucky be anything but gentle and loving. It’s hard for her to believe her boyfriend was ever the world’s deadliest and most lethal assassin. Bucky x reader. —— Oh god, I loved this with my whole ass heart.

Swipe Right by @avengerscompound

Summary: Sam Wilson signs Steve up for Tinder. When the woman he Super Likes during Sam’s tutorial messages him, Steve goes from unwilling dating app user to developing feelings. Steve Rogers x Reader. Completed series.

Breakfast in Bed by @avengerscompound

Summary: Children really do change things They also have terrible timing. Steve x reader.

Dead Serious by @puppy-barnes

Summary: When you accidentally kill a man after a night with friends, you call your boyfriend Bucky to come save the day. Bucky x Reader. —— God, I loved this so much. Its so original and hysterical and I’ve read this so many times.

Polaroids by @spidey-holland67

Summary: May gets Peter a camera for his birthday, ever since then he cant stop taking pictures of you. He always kept them in a box in his room, but one day some one finally finds them. Peter Paker x Stark!Reader. Smut

Sharing by @elivanah

Summary: Steve’s girlfriend finds out that Steve and his best friend used to share their women. Steve x reader x Bucky. Smut. —— If this aint the hottest shit I’ve read in a while.

What Feels Right by @waywardmoeyy

Summary: Castiel makes a move on the reader. Castiel x reader.

Adrenaline Fix by @jaamesbbarnes

Summary: When you need to spice up your life and Bucky in intendedly provides the spice but also the comfort. Bucky x Reader. —— AHHHH IM SO SOFT YOU DONT EVEN KNOW.

Lil Bit Floozy by @piscesbarnes

Summary: Bucky’s more prone to be responsive when you’re a soft drunken mess. Bucky x reader

Snowed In by @beckzorz

Summary: You’re all set for a vacation in the woods. A cozy cabin, a fireplace, solitude… Then a tall stranger falls through your front door. What’s a girl to do? Bucky x reader. —— Hannukah fic!!

Starshine by @a-splash-of-stucky

Summary: The starts feature in some important moments throughout your life. 40s!Steve Rogers x reader —— Absolutely loved this and shed a few tears by the end.

Unusual Request by @a-splash-of-stucky

Summary: In which you dress up as a schoolgirl and have a threesome with Nat and Steve. Steve x Natasha x Reader. Smut.

How Long Will I Love You by @a-splash-of-stucky

Summary: Nothing Lasts forever, except, perhaps, your love for him. Artist!Steve Rogers x Artist!Reader. —— Just break my heart into billions of pieces i guess.

The Quest for Love by @sgtjbuccky

Summary: (Modern-Day!AU) Work has always been a priority for Bucky, leaving things like love long forgotten, and for him it’s no problem, but for Sam and Steve it is the biggest problem to grace this earth. Fed up with Bucky and his constant protests and avoidance of love, they set him up on a series of dates to find the girl of his dreams with the help of the magical spirit of December. Only for Bucky to realize love isn’t always found where one goes looking for it, but may be close by. Bucky x reader. Completed series. —— Ohhhhhhhh my goddddddddd. The love i have for this series is unreal. I love their banter and playfulness and how easy going their whole relationship us. Its so fun and sweet and endearing.

Say It by @sgtjbuccky

Summary: In where you loved Bucky unconditionally, enough to sacrifice your life for his happiness, now Bucky tries to save you. Bucky x reader. Completed series. —— Bruhhhhhhhhh, this is such a good ass series. Unrequited love, sacrifice and soooo much pain. Love this fic with my whole ass heart.

Already Yours by @sgtjbuccky

Summary: Bucky hasn’t had the best of luck trying to charm you, but when confidence finally washes over him, he makes his move only to realize is ain’t as smooth as he used to be, but that may not be a bad thing at all. Based on prompt: “You keep licking your lips and giving me that look, you don’t even know me, yet I’m already yours”. 40s!Bucky x reader.

The Three Times Steve Caught You by @bucky-plums-barnes

Summary: Bucky is back from the war, you have time to make up for. Sometimes it’s interrupted. 40s!Bucky x reader.

Woman Like a Drug by @writingcroissant

Summary: Bucky thinks naughty thoughts and you’re not ready to reveal a secret. Bucky x reader

Out of Touch by @buckitybarnes

Summary: “I think i requested this one before but i really want this fic! Bucky always to goes to hang with the reader when he wakes up with nightmares because he thinks she’s always still up. In reality, reader make FRIDAY wake her up when Bucky gets up at night so she can comfort him and Steve finds out.” Bucky x reader. —— This tore my heart to bits.

I Just Want Attention by @buckysforeverprincess

Summary: You begin to have doubts about your relationship with Steve as he starts to pull away from you. Steve x reader. —— Oh fuck, whatever I had left of a heart was destroyed.

Kinkmas - Day Eight by @beardandbooty

Summary: Subby rope bunny Bucky. Bucky x reader. Smut. —— Technically this is more of an headcanon/drabble (???) than a fic but It was too good to not put it on the list. Also, i love the term rope bunny, and Bucky’s last line in this fic.

Headcanon by @prettyyoungtragedy

Summary: Ask: “Being one of the best assassins ever known, Bucky lord to use his skills and stealth to get handsy with you whenever he can. He can almost have you on the verge of coming on the couch while everyone is in the same room watching movies and they never notice.” Bucky x reader. Smut. —— Also a headcanon, but I loved this a little too much.

248 notes · View notes

your-modern-shakespeare · 6 years

Text

A Little Too Real (12)

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 4.5, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 7.5, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 10.5, Part 11, Part 11.5

Summary: RealityTV!AU- You are a wardrobe supervisor for a popular TV network. The show is planning a reality TV show like the bachelor and Bucky is the newest contestant. But as the competition starts he realizes that he doesn’t like any of the girls…on the show anyway.

Pairing : Bucky x Reader (eventual)

Word Count: 10,375 (ish)

A/N: So I’m excited to finally get something out after my terrible bout of writer’s block. We should only have one or two parts left of this fic and then it will all be over :( But I hope that you guys are still with me and I’m sorry for the ridiculous wait. Love you guys and enjoy!

Warnings: kissing, mentions of sexy times, google translate, talk of depression (non-descriptive), break-up talk, I’m not sure what else

BUCKY’S POV

Week 9

Monday

“Guys! I don’t have anything I want to say!” I said to Steve and Peggy. Ever since I got back to LA, I’ve been getting non-stop calls from these two and when that wasn’t enough they decided that an impromptu visit would get them the answers they wanted. I had managed to avoid them all weekend, but on Monday I was not so fortunate.

“Something happened in Moscow and now Y/N is ignoring us. What did you do to her?” Peggy said.

“I—There’s—I can’t talk about what happened.”

“Then that means that something really bad happened.”

“Something bad did happen, but it’s not anything I can talk about.”

“Bucky you have always been able to talk to me, why is it different now?” Steve asked.

“It’s different because it has to do with Y/N. You guys know me better than anyone. And so you know that I would tell you what was happening if I could.”

“He does have a point there.”

“Well that’s not good enough for me. She called me and told me about you finally asking her out and then you plan literally the most perfect date, not to mention that I know what that dress looked like on her. And all of the sudden the two of you aren’t speaking to each other. How does it get to that stage?”

“Like I said...I wish I could tell you. I miss Y/N every single second of the day and there’s never a time where she’s not on my mind. I love her, but I have a reason for what I did and I wouldn’t have done what I did if it wasn’t important. Everything I do is for her.”

“If you could just tell us what’s happening—”

“I wish I could, but I can’t. And I would love to talk about this more but I need to go to work.”

“Bucky we just want to help.” Steve tried one last time.

“I know you do. This is...this is hard on me too. And I can’t talk about it, which makes it harder. I want more than anything to go and tell her what’s happening, but right this second I can’t do anything. I just need to finish the show so this can all be over and I can focus on her.”

I walked out the door then, knowing that those two would lock up when they left. I drove to work, thinking about Y/N and what I did. I’m sure there was a better way to do what I did, something that made more sense. But everything that I did was to protect her and that was my only priority at the moment.

Monday...first day of filming.

T-minus 11 days until I can see Y/N again.

Y/N’S POV

Monday

Being back in LA was not as comforting as I thought it would be. Of course, it didn’t help that I didn’t want to see anyone or talk to anyone or tell anyone what happened, so instead I just ignored everyone and sat in my apartment alone until Monday came around.

And then I had to go to work.

But I couldn’t see him again, so I had to use, for the first time ever, a favor that I had with the one person who probably hated me the most right now.

Y/N: I’m cashing in my no-questions-asked favor

WM: Well I’m glad to see you’re alive. You know, we’ve all been worried sick about you and you can’t even tell us that you got back or that you’re home or apparently anything.

Y/N: The favor?

WM: I regret ever giving you that

Y/N: I need you to take over the dating show

WM: The dating show?

Y/N: That was a question

WM: Unintentionally

Y/N: I need you to do this

WM: Of course I will, but if you think that you can just ask me to take over Bucky’s show and not give me a reason then you’re crazy.

Just reading his name made my heart leap

Y/N: You’re not getting a reason from me, that’s why I’m calling in the no-questions-asked favor instead of the regular favor

WM: How many favors do I owe you?

Y/N: More than you think

WM: I’m worried about you

Y/N: I’ll be fine

So that day, instead of going on the road with the rest of the crew, I went and hid away in the wardrobe room, trying my best to get everything organized and set up for once “the dating show” was done. Wanda was at the house filming when I left for the day so, I ignored another call from Peggy, I sat and ate dinner, alone, and went to bed early, crying myself to sleep...again.

Tuesday

I got into the wardrobe room early and unluckily for me Wanda was there waiting.

“I need an explanation.”

“And I need a break.”

“Y/N, I can see that something is wrong.”

“Well your eyes are working.” I went over to my table and started to clean up.

“Why won’t you talk to me?”

“There’s nothing to talk about.” She just glared at me. “Nothing I want to talk about.”

“What did he do?”

“Who?”

“Bucky.”

“He didn’t do anything.”

“You know, He looks just as miserable as you do.”

“Good.” I mumbled under my breath, knowing for sure that she didn’t hear me.

“Then what did you do?”

“I didn’t do anything.” I said way too quickly and way too aggressively.

“So he did do something.”

“I really don’t want to talk about it.”

“Why not?”

“Because things are already hard enough! I don’t need constant texts and calls from you and Peggy! I’m not fine that’s all you need to know!” She looked at me and could definitely see that I wasn’t okay.

“I know that I don’t know what exactly you’re going through but you know I’m here for you, right? This doesn’t have to be hard.”

“I just can’t do this right now. I can’t handle all the questions and I can’t handle the way you look at me.”

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Yeah. I know that there’s been a lot happening lately, but I also know that you’re the silent grieving type. Now I don’t know what happened between you and Bucky in Moscow but I know that it can’t be easy losing a parent. So I’m going to step back and when you’re ready to talk about what happened with Bucky I’ll be here for you.”

“Thanks.”

“And I know that Peggy and I can be annoying sometimes but it’s just because we love you.”

“I know.”

“That and apparently Bucky won't tell them anything either.”

“I just need some time.”

“Well time I can give...no matter how impatient I am.”

“And pushy.”

“Now you’re just being insulting.”

“But I still love you.”

“I love you too.” She mumbled.

I went back to work and she headed out, more than likely to her flight for whichever girl’s families he was supposed to meet first. I had dodged a bullet, I always loved Wanda for having my back, but it didn’t lessen the hurt in my heart. I wasn’t sure anyone could fix that.

BUCKY’S POV

Tuesday

With filming done at the house for now, it was off to a new a place.

I didn’t see Y/N at all yesterday and Wanda looked like she wanted to murder me, so I assumed that Y/N wasn’t coming to shooting anymore. That being said the crew and I left pretty late for our flight, accompanied by Malia, whose dad lived in Seattle.

It wouldn’t be a long flight, only at about 3 hours, but sitting in a plane next to one of the crew members, luckily, I didn’t have to put too much effort into putting up my charade, which made everything a lot more tolerable.

I had never been to Seattle before and despite the fact that I was going to be “pinning” after another woman, I was actually kind of excited for a distraction from what was happening.

After the initial phone call, I had done everything in my power to avoid Y/N. She was already in my every thought and she was ignoring me, so so far everything was going to plan. I just needed to make it to next week, I needed to finish the show. So I had to believe that being in a city that I had never been to before, would provide the perfect distraction from...everything. That is until I spot the cameras.

When we landed I grabbed my carry on and followed the crew out of the plane, all the while they filmed mine and Malia’s every move. Most everyone had just the one bag they needed for the four days that we would be traveling but we had to stop briefly for Malia’s bag at baggage claim, seeing that she wouldn’t be back in for filming again until next Wednesday.

Malia’s father met us at baggage claim shortly after we found her bag, doing a proper introduction. There was definitely a clear resemblance between the two and after her mom left them it must have been a great relief for Malia to be so unlike her.

Her father showed us over to his car, where I placed both of our bags in the trunk before opening the door for her and letting her slide in first. The crew climbed into a van parked behind us and then we got on the road.

The drive to Malia’s house was about an hour and went through the heart of the city. So instead of going straight to the house we decided to stop in downtown and do some basic touristy things: Space Needle, Chihuly Garden and Glass, which I hadn’t know was a thing, and even had a little time to stop in at Pike Place Market after our dinner at their favorite restaurant. It made for an eventful day. I got to see a beautiful city, look at some of the best artwork, and experience a new place that I had never been to before. And despite all of that, I couldn’t help but want to show Y/N all of it and see her smile as she saw how beautiful it was. A few times I had tried to talk to Wanda, I guess just wanting to have someone to talk to about all of this, since I couldn’t talk to Y/N, but she pretty much ignored me everytime I tried.

As we finally called it a day and headed back to her home, her dad spoke more about the city and about how he and Malia had come to live in Seattle. And then he pulled up to their home. It was sort of hidden in from the main street, surrounded by trees and yet still close to their neighbors. It was a beautiful house, unusually big for just two people and yet according to her father quite small at only 3 bedrooms.

As we made it inside, her father grabbed our bags from the trunk and Malia quickly dragged me inside to give a tour, and as usual the cameras were there. The house on the inside was just as beautiful as the outside, with basic but updated features, you could tell it had been recently cleaned, and kind of like her father lived here alone, which I guess he did. To me it appeared strange that the house was so bare. There weren’t too many pictures of the two and despite Malia having shown me pictures of her mother, there was no peep of her mother anywhere. Nonetheless the place was great, just a little un-homey to me.

Malia showed me to the guest bedroom which had a great view of the backyard which was big and surrounded by trees, creating a natural fenced in area. Also on the ground floor, next to the guest room was the kitchen and living room, which I had seen right when I walked in.

She showed me downstairs next, which automatically made me feel a little better. Both the master and the second bedroom were on this basement level and between the two was a small living space with a loveseat, chair, and entertainment system. It became very evident that this was the main living space as there were more pictures and just a little more life than what I had seen upstairs.

As soon as the tour was done her father met us downstairs with Malia’s bag, and just like that the night had ended. The camera crew left for their hotel and promised to be back in the morning, I went back upstairs and quickly fell asleep, not needing more than my head to hit the soft pillow for me to be out.

T-minus 10 days until I can see Y/N again.

Wednesday

I woke up the next morning, actually feeling as if I had gotten some sleep. Her dad had made us breakfast and the half day that we would spend here today would pretty much just be me and Malia...and the crew of course.

But she had made things...kind of hard. Don’t get me wrong I liked Malia, she made it this far for a reason, but she kind of did the exact opposite of what I expected. The whole point of today had been to have her show me who she was, show me where she grew up and how she became the person she was today. When in reality I spent the whole day going around her town meeting people that she had grown up with and being shown off, as if she had already won. It made me feel very uneasy that this side of her, one where she cared so much about what people thought of her, was coming out so late in the show. What else did I not know?

After I thought we had met the last of the entire neighborhood, I took Malia out to lunch, to a little place that I had spotted last night driving in. I should have known better than to expect anything different though. We were shown over to a table and as soon as we sat it was as if the whole place wanted to meet me and while we ordered, ate, and paid I didn’t spend any time talking to Malia, her too busy talking to whoever had joined us at the moment.

Later when we got back to the house I packed up my things and got ready for the next flight. Malia had offered for her and her dad to drive me to the airport but I insisted that she spend as much time with her dad as possible, not really being in the mood to try and carry a conversation with her after a day like today.

And so, with my things in the trunk, me and the crew headed back to the airport. We had had a little bit of time to wait around but I got to walk around, grab some coffee, and I even grabbed a couple of postcards so I could give them to Steve, Peggy, and Y/N when this whole mess blew over. When we finally got to board our flight I found my seat and unfortunately for Wanda, she had to sit next to me. We sat in silence for a bit, I not being sure about what exactly was safe to talk to her about, but knowing that I needed to, otherwise I would explode.

“I have a reason.” I said randomly.

“It’s not good enough.”

“I love her and I would have given everything to stay with her, but I’m thinking about her and I’m not good for her right now.”

“That’s bull and you know it.”

“I don’t really have the choice.” I said a little slower hoping she would catch on to something. I stared at her hoping for some kind of response.

“She trusted you to be there for her—”

“I left her a note asking her to trust me. I need you to trust me too.” Something clicked this time.

“Something’s happened...hasn’t it?” She whispered, making sure none of the other crew members would hear.

“I’m not allowed to say.” I whispered back.

“Is she in trouble?”

“Not anymore.”

“But you can’t tell me anything?”

“I can’t tell anyone.”

“How long before you tell her?”

“Next Friday.”

“Next Friday is the last day of the show.” I didn’t respond after that. She got the idea and now I just needed her to tell Y/N and hopefully she would forgive me when I saw her again.

That or I would have to come up with another plan.

T-minus 9 days until I see Y/N again.

Y/N’S POV

Wednesday

It was another day. Another very long day.

Wake up.

Get ready.

Go to work.

Go home.

The worst part of it all though, was how lonely it was.

And yet instead of calling my friends and just telling them what was going on I watched a sad movie and got all the tears I had been holding in, out of my system.

And of course, I thought of him...a lot.

Thursday

As easy, yet as terrible, as it was to hold everything inside, I was going crazy from not telling anyone about what happened. But I couldn’t tell Peggy what happened because she was Bucky’s friend first and I couldn’t tell Wanda because she still had to work with Bucky. Normally I would call my dad and without him here...the person I went to for everything was Bucky and I obviously couldn’t do that.

The one person I had left...I had to believe that he would be on my side.

I knocked on the door of his very big house and waited for him to answer, but it wasn’t him.

“Is Tony here?” I asked.

“Yeah, let me go get him.”

So I stood in the living room as the woman left to go find Tony. Weirdly enough I was actually kind of nervous, but I wasn’t sure I would make it through the rest of the show if I didn’t get this off my chest. I was pacing in the living room when he came in.

“Hey, Y/N.” I turned to face him and he wrapped me in a hug. “I heard about your dad, I’m so sorry.”

“Thanks.”

“But I’m pretty sure that that’s not why you’re here.”

“I feel like I’m losing my mind.”

“How about we sit?” The woman said and we moved over to the couch.

“Y/N, you’ve met Pepper right?”

“This is Pepper?”

“According to Tony, I have you to thank for knocking some sense into him.”

“You two are back together?”

“We’re working on it.”

“Well I’m happy for you guys, I could only wish to be so lucky apparently.”

“I think we need to know what happened.” Pepper said.

“What did he do?” Tony asked. Placing a pillow in his lap and letting me rest my head on top.

“He...I fell in love with him. I let myself believe that he loved me too. I was fooled, duped, played. And now I feel like I can’t breath or eat or sleep because I’ve lost a piece of me.”

“What did he do?”

“He was there for me after my dad died. He came to the funeral and made me feel as if everything was going to be alright. He took me out on the most perfect date. He gave me the best day of my life and showed me what love was really like. But worst of all, he was my best friend. He took care of me, he protected me, he fooled me into loving him. And then left me. I mean, I’m not stupid right? There was something there.”

“You two are crazy about each other.”

“Then what did I do wrong?”

“You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Then what could have happened? I am rattling my brain for some kind of explanation. That day...those dates felt like something more than just a one day kind of thing. He said and...did things that meant more.”

“Tell us about the date, maybe something happened.” Pepper said.

“I have gone over everything a million times...it was a perfect day. He made me breakfast in bed, took me to Roscosmos, and we met up with his friend Sam who gave us a tour of the headquarters. Then we went out for coffee with Sam before we headed back to my house.”

“Did anything weird happen while he was there? Sometimes confronting your past can be hard and he always wanted to be an astronaut, it couldn’t have been easy for him to be back there.” Tony asked.

“He was happy. He didn’t do anything out of the ordinary, nothing upset him, he was glad to be back, even if it was just for a little while.”

“What happened after?” Pepper said, trying to get me to continue.

“We went back to my house after that and got ready for the next part of the date. I had this really great dress that Peggy bought for me as a bridesmaid gift and he was wearing this navy suit...he looked really handsome. But anyway, he took me to this jazz club and we had drinks and ate dinner and he danced with me, he requested my favorite song...it was nothing I had expected, it was a perfect date.”

“And?”

“And what?” They didn’t need to know everything right?

“It didn’t end there right?” She knew, women always knew.

“The blush tells you everything.” Tony cut in, pointing at my cheeks.

“You guys are so embarrassing.” I covered my face with my hands.

“How was it?” Pepper asked.

“I can’t tell you that!”

And they kept badgering me until I couldn’t take it anymore and walked out onto the patio, putting some space between me and then.

Despite having wanted to talk to someone about all of this it still hurt like hell to think about how good everything was. I missed him. I missed the way he would walk really close to me, so that our hands would touch accidentally. I missed the way he would smile at me when he caught me looking at him, and ignore the fact that I had been looking at him. I missed talking to him about every little thought on my mind, even the thoughts and ideas that made no sense whatsoever. I missed the way he used to hold me when I laid next to him in bed. But most of all I missed the feeling of being completely loved by someone else because I knew that my feelings for him weren’t going to go away anytime soon.

“Are you okay?” I heard coming from behind me. I quickly wiped the tears off my cheeks and turned to look back at Tony.

“Sure.”

“That doesn’t sound okay.”

“I just...I came here looking...looking to hide away I guess.”

“From what?”

“It’s...that’s something he used to say when things got tough. You know, we would go and hide away from everything.”

“Did he give you a reason?”

“For leaving?”

“Yeah.”

“No.”

“Then he doesn’t deserve you.”

“I can’t even remember what my life was like before his interview.”

“I get that.”

“I just thought that talking to you would help because maybe you wouldn’t be on his side. I know that Peggy and Steve are and I can’t tell Wanda what’s happening because she works with him everyday. Normally I would talk to my dad, but...I can’t. I’m just not really sure what to do.”

“When Pepper left me, it was the hardest thing that I went through. She had been this huge part of my life, she was my best friend. All of the sudden I had to learn how to live without her.”

“What did you do?”

“Well at first I tried to blame her, I tried to make it seem like it wasn’t my fault. And then I went through this crazy partying phase where I drank too much and looked for ways to make the day disappear. And when that didn’t help the depression kicked in so I dove back in to my work looking for a distraction. But it took me too long to realize that the reason she left, was me. I had always been a workaholic and it got worse when I got the prosthetic project. I worked through the night, never left the office, and then the fame followed. It became easier for me to talk to someone else at work about what was happening. It became easier to dive back into my work when we were fighting. It became easier...to ignore her and it should have never gotten that far. So when I was done being crazy and depressed and whatever, and when I finally realized that this whole situation had been my fault, I had to spend a lot of time with my feelings. There was a reason she left now, and I had to find a way to be better, not to fix things with her, but to prove that that person wasn’t me anymore, even if she never took me back. What I had to realize was that I may have messed up the best thing I ever had and with time I would come to live through the pain I created. I had to learn to live without her so that maybe one day I would deserve to be happy again. And no matter what happened as long as she was happy, I knew that I would be fine.”

“You were willing to give her up?”

“Yes. I had become someone I didn’t recognize. When I finally realized what I had done, it was too late to try and explain to her what had happened. So instead of trying to make excuses and blame something else for what happened, I decided to let her go so that she could be happy.”

“Do you think I should let him go?”

“I think that you need to talk to someone who knows you and him a little better. I can tell you to leave him and that you deserve better but I’m not the one who knows the both of you best. And I don’t think that Steve and Peggy are automatically going to be on his side.”

“Yeah?”

“You’re they’re friend too. And I don’t think you should make anything final without really talking to Barnes first. There may be a reason, one that could easily fix things. Don’t give up on something good if you don’t have to.”

“Okay.”

I didn’t stay too much longer after that. He tried to get me to stay and watch a movie with them but like he said, I needed to sit with my feelings and maybe I would gather up the courage to actually go and see Peggy and Steve.

BUCKY’S POV

Thursday

We arrived in Hawaii pretty late, too late to go and meet up with Ulani and her parents; they would meet us at the hotel in the afternoon. So getting into our hotel rooms, which I didn’t have to share with anyone, was a blessing after our long flight. And yet the idea of sleeping alone... again...sucked. I was really missing Y/N.

I woke up the next morning still feeling tired after the shift in time, trying multiple times to go back to sleep until a reasonable hour came around and not having much luck. So instead I got ready for the day, went downstairs for some breakfast and snuck away from the rest of the crew, just wanting to spend some time by myself. So I walked around the island, I did a little window shopping, picking out some souvenirs for everyone and ate some Hawaiian delicacies before heading to the beach. I just put on my shades, put in my headphones and sat in the sand, watching the waves hit the beach over and over again. It was calming and a very welcome distraction. Except for every now and then I would see people looking at me, well not at me, but at my arm and for a second I would think back to Y/N and how she never looked at me in that way, how easily she had accepted that it was a part of me.

But when enough time passed I got the phone call from the director, telling me that I needed to come back to the hotel. I had my towel wrapped around my neck and my t-shirt in my hands, having used the hot weather and the sun to hopefully dry myself off a little more before putting my t-shirt back on. I needed to get back to the hotel and take a shower before meeting Ulani’s parents and maybe even have a enough time to grab Wanda and ask her to iron my shirt for dinner tonight.

I walked into the hotel and started making my way over to the elevators when I was stopped by one of the crew members and was ushered over to Ulani and her parents. I could see their expressions as I was moved to stand in front of them and I very quickly put my t-shirt back on before apologizing. They did the polite thing and told me that they saw it a lot living in Hawaii, but I could see that they were uncomfortable with my arm and that made me feel unwelcome.

And despite that, the cameras started to roll and we did the first introductions and like before I acted like everything was okay when I knew it wasn’t.

No matter what happened, I could tell from speaking with them further that they were good people, there daughter being a spitting image of them. The thing that I liked about Ulani so much was her kindness and her ability to be herself when things got too dramatic with the other girls. She stood out basically because she never stood out. At another time in my life I would have liked to believe that I would have dated her on my own. And meeting her parents and having them think that she had found someone to love only made me feel worse than I already felt.

Her parents seemed excited to meet me, though, after the initial shock of my arm and even gave me a traditional leis, an official greeting to the island, since they weren’t able to meet me at the airport. And instead of doing the touristy things, seeing that I had already done some sightseeing, after I was properly bathed, dressed, and had packed up my things, the three of them took me to their house.

The drive to Malia’s childhood home was beautiful as anyone would expect of Hawaii. Her parents talked excitedly about things happening in their neighborhood and gave me a few stories about what Malia was like growing up. And then they pulled up in front of this beautiful house.

It was smaller than the other ones we had passed, but surrounded by trees and with the noise of the ocean in the background, their home stood out by far. The house itself was triangular with high vaulted ceilings, white wood walls, and dark hardwood floors. This house was stunning in every way no matter how small. Malia being an only child the only other members of her family to meet were her two dogs who immediately welcomed all the added attention of myself and the crew.

So the rest of the day consisted of settling in to the guest bedroom, walking along the beach with Ulani and eating a traditional Hawaiian meal at a luau, all the while putting on a carefully planned out ruse on my part. It was exhausting.

Spending the day with these cameras on me, watching my every move with a woman that I didn’t love, probably hurting her in the process, made it hard to go to sleep that night. And even though it was just one more night I couldn’t help but feel so completely homesick. I wanted to talk to my friends about what was going on, I wanted to see Y/N, kiss her, hold her, I wanted to be done with the show.

So I spent a lot of time that night going through my phone, looking at pictures and text messages with Y/N and just praying that next week would go by much faster than it was currently moving. I missed her...I missed her a lot.

T-minus 8 days until I see Y/N again.

Friday

The following morning was supposed to be my day with Ulaini, you know showing me where she grew up. But this morning I got a little unexpected surprise and not a bad one at all.

“Hey James? Can I talk to you for a second?” Ulani asked.

“Yeah, Sure.” I looked at her, waiting for her to talk.

“In private?” She looked at the crew members around and knew that she didn’t want this recorded.

“Yeah, did you have somewhere in mind?” Then she came up with a brilliant escape plan, keeping everyone from noticing that we had ever left at all. We walked some ways away from her house, but being so close to the ocean she had the perfect little sea cliff hiding spot for us to sit on, and one with an incredible view at that. She sat down first and I followed behind, both of us looking out at the waves and I waiting for her to say what she needed to say.

“I need your help.” She started. I liked Ulani, I considered her a friend no matter what and if she needed my help who was I to say no.

“Okay.”

“But I may offend you.”

“Okay?”

“I don’t love you.”

“Okay.” I was confused now.

“And I know that you don’t love me.”

“Well….” She wasn’t supposed to know.

“And it’s okay. I’ve seen you with Y/N.”

“But how does this help you.” I gave in, I guess admitting that she was right.

“I think that I have a way to help each other out.”

“I’m not sure I know where you’re going with this.”

“I have also...fallen in love with one of the crew members.”

“Really?”

“And I know, and you probably know too, that the crew contracts don’t allow for coworkers to date.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“But there is also a slight issue when it comes to our contracts.”

“With what? I had my lawyer go through it and as soon as the show is over I should be in the clear to see anyone I want.”

“I know that in my contract it says that as soon as I’m eliminated or if I win, the contract is complete.”

“Right, but in my contract it doesn’t ever say that I have to choose someone.”

“But you wouldn’t be completing the contract.”

“What?”

“Okay, so I’ve been thinking. What happens if you don’t choose anyone, contractually?”

“Nothing, the shows over.”

“Not quite. It leaves a hole, essentially, in the contract which can give the network the possibility of sequels.”

“You’re kidding right?”

“I’m not. I went over my contract and it’s permanently finished if either of us end up with someone or if we lose.”

“But they can’t just make us do another show if I don’t choose someone.”

“There’s nothing that says they can’t. If we get eliminated we’re done. If we’re chosen we’re done. But there is nothing in our contract that tells us what happens if nothing happens. And then we would technically still have the contract which leaves the network with people who are still contracted.”

“Which means that we would still be working for them.”

“Which means we still can’t date coworkers.”

“What are you suggesting then?”

“We complete the contract.”

“So I choose someone.”

“You choose me.”

“But if you’re eliminated, you’re free and you—”

“If I win, our contracts will be done and you don’t have to explain to me that you’re in love with someone else. We end our contracts and we get to go off with the people we actually love.”

“Does Malia know about this?”

“No, she actually really likes you. But if you choose me you won’t have to explain to her what we already know.”

“You know, if you had told me sooner I would have eliminated you, I would have been sad to see you go but you deserve to be happy.”

“You would have been sad?”

“Yeah. There’s no drama with you.” She laughed at me and I couldn’t help but laugh too. It felt nice to laugh again. “So do I know this coworker?”

“Yeah you do.”

“Are you going to tell me?”

“Um...her name is Diana.”

“Props Diana?”

“Yeah?” She looked shocked though.

“What?”

“I just didn’t expect you to react that way.”

“React what way?”

“You know...”

“Because you’re bi? There’s nothing wrong with that.”

“Well I’m glad you think so.”

“Are you happy?”

“With her...Yeah.”

“Then that’s all that should matter.”

“Thanks.”

“Of course. You know, I may not love you but I still do care about you. I knew from our first date that you would probably win if I was going to pick anyone. Out of everyone I thought that you were the most like someone I would date in real life.”

“Funny enough, I don’t think I ever would have dated you if I met you out in the real world.” I just laughed.

“Why’s that?”

“The last boyfriend I had...he wasn’t so nice when I told him that I was bi. I knew it well before I met him but I just didn’t think about telling him right away. Ever since then I’ve just had more luck with dating women, not that there’s anything against men; you’re just too attractive honestly.” I can’t remember the last time I laughed that hard. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be. It’s been a long time since I’ve laughed that hard.” The last time probably being with Y/N. “I’m sure it had been something Y/N said.” I said a little more sad.

“Why do you sound sad by that?”

“I haven’t seen Y/N since Moscow.”

“Why?”

“I can’t really say...legally.”

“A gag order?”

“Yeah. They wanted to put her through more...stuff and she doesn’t deserve that, so I did the only thing they offered so that I could be with her again.”

“They made you break up with her.”

“If you consider one date being together than yeah.”

“You guys have only been on one date?”

“It took us a long time to step out of the friend zone.”

“You guys just always seemed like more, and I’m talking like the whole time.”

“What you guys didn’t see was that Y/N and I met long before the show started. And I was scared that my feelings for her were too strong especially when I was about to go on this dating show. There were a few times I wanted to quit and my friends told me otherwise, but they didn’t know how I felt about Y/N, they just assumed I was scared.”

“How did you two meet?”

“She was at my interview for the show. When I first walked in the room, I was so nervous, everyone was looking at me except for her. She was staring down at this notepad, kind of like she was doodling, then I got to stand in front of everyone...and she looked up at me. I thought she was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. So I introduced myself and they asked me to take a seat. I started telling them about myself and I don’t know what brought me to say that I spoke Russian and Romanian, I guess I just wanted to impress her, you know? And yet the next thing I know she’s speaking to me in Russian, trying to prove that I wasn’t lying. And then I’m talking about how I used to work at Roscosmos and she got really excited because her and her dad had loved Roscosmos. But everything after the interview was just...easy and it’s crazy to think of it in that way because of everything that’s happened but for me it wasn’t ever hard to just be there for her. I didn’t always have the right things to say or did the right things but being with her was really the best thing I could give. And being by her side and seeing just how amazing she was made me fall in love with her.”

“That’s really romantic.”

“How did you and Diana meet?”

“Well...I met her, technically, on the first day of filming. She was walking around the house straightening up things and I thought she was cute, but I kind of had the same thought as you, you know, that I was on this show to see if I would fall in love with you. But as the first weeks passed by and I kept seeing her around it got harder for me to ignore that she was a little more than cute. So I started talking to her, just little things like how was her day and that I liked the shirt she was wearing. Then it turned into her pointing something out that she had spotted on the show and those longer conversations turned into texts and calls. We had been dancing around each other when by that point we knew that there was something there. And out of nowhere she finally asked if I was into girls, she was so nervous, it was cute, and instead of answering her I just kissed her. I just felt so strongly about her that I didn’t feel the need to hide it and we’ve been dating ever since.”

“Honestly, I wish I had done that with Y/N sooner. And yet somehow I don’t regret having been her friend first.”

“I don’t either, even if we were friends shorter than you guys were. One thing I am sad about though…”

“What’s that?”

“She’s here in Hawaii with us and I can’t introduce her to my parents. I don’t really get to fly out here that often and it would have been the perfect opportunity to come out to them.”

“They don’t know?”

“No.”

“I’m sorry. I’m sure the right time will come again.”

“Yeah.”

We stared out at the waves for a little while longer but eventually had to go back to the house, where the crew had been looking for us.

We could only film a few more things before the crew and myself had to leave for the airport; we visited her high school, went to the beach...again, and finally stopped for lunch. The day, unlike what had happened with Malia, was actually good and I was happy that she didn’t try to introduce me to everyone on the island.

The flight back to LA wasn’t nearly as long as the flight from Seattle, I still got home later than I would have liked but I had a lot of time to think on the plane and I came up with a plan.

T-minus 0 days until I see Y/N again

Y/N’S POV

Friday

I got home relatively early from work and quickly made a batch of small pies before heading over. I drove my car in complete silence not really being in the mood to sing along to whatever overplayed radio song. When I pulled up in front of their apartment I sat for a minute, trying my best to collect some last minute bravery to face them. And then I made my way over to their door, knocking as quietly as I could in the hopes they wouldn’t hear.

“Please don’t be mad at me.” I said as soon as the door opened and before me was Peggy with an unhappy look on her face. I held out the plate of pies as a peace offering.

“I’m not sure what exactly I should be mad at. Maybe the fact that you've ignored me all week or the fact that you won't tell me what’s going on, or maybe it’s-”

“Hey Y/N.” Steve moved in front of Peggy, grabbed the pies, handed them to her, ultimately stopping her rant, and wrapped me in his arms. Feeling the familiarity of friends, no matter their anger at me, gave me relief, and made me cry.

Steve could feel my sobs and because of it he held me tighter, not even caring that we were standing on their front porch. “I’m so sorry Y/N.” He said, not saying it because of anything in particular, just saying it because he was upset that I was upset.

“I’m sorry. I’ve wanted to talk to you guys all week, I just...I thought you wouldn’t want to see me.” I said finally having pulled away from Steve, wiping the tears from my cheeks.

“Wouldn’t want to see you?” He asked shuffling the three of us inside.

“You guys were his friends first.” I said, sitting down on the couch, both of them following suit.

“Y/N…”

“You’re crazy if you think we’d choose which friends to be there for based on something like that.” Peggy said.

“Yeah, if you need us, we’re here for you.”

“Not to mention the fact that he was the one who did this to you, of course we’re going to be on your side.”

“I don't want you to be mad at him.” I said.

“You don’t want us to?” Peggy asked.

“The funny part of all of this is that I’m not really even mad at him. I’m confused and I’m hurt, but I would never be mad at him because I love him...you know?”

“Yeah.” Steve agreed.

“So what happened, obviously the date went well.”

“Obviously?” I asked.

“I saw you in that dress, remember?”

“Yeah...It was a perfect date.”

“And?”

“And what?”

“And…?”

“I’m not giving details.”

“So something happened?”

“You two are setting me up just like Tony and Pepper did.”

“They set you up to admit that you and Bucky slept together?”

“Yes.” As soon as I answered their question I knew I had messed up. They became a trying-their-hardest-not-to-smile mess and there was nothing I could do to stop it. “Fine get it out of your system.”

You know when you haven’t seen your best friend in a really long time and when you do get to see each other again, there’s like a lot of squealing and hugging. It was like that with those two, except a whole lot worse. I just sat there and let them get it all out and when they finally caught on that I wasn’t responding to anything, they stopped.

“Sorry.” Peggy said and they both stopped the crazy show that was happening.

“I didn’t come to talk about that.”

“We know.” Steve said.

“I’m just so confused. One second everything was perfect and the next thing I know I haven’t seen him in a week.”

“So the date was perfect, the after was perfect and then he was gone in the morning?”

“Right.”

“Something must have happened while you were sleeping.” Peggy suggested.

“Yeah but what? Everything was completely okay before we went to sleep and he didn’t mention anything before.”

“It may not be something you immediately think of. So, let’s think about what we do know.” Steve cut in.

“Like?”

“Like we know that the both of you are in love with each other.” Peggy said.

“And?”

“We know that a long time ago he decided not to choose anyone on the show.”

“Right. But guys...there’s something I haven’t shown you, I’m not sure if it’ll help but...”

I pulled the letter out of my pocket and looked at it, feeling a little of the heart break all over again.

“He left this on my bedside table before he left.” I handed it over to Peggy and Steve moved closer to her so that he could read.

“Y/N, I can’t begin to tell you how amazing last night was, I would have given anything to stay in that moment forever. You deserve so much more than what’s been dealt to you and ever since the moment I met you, I��ve wanted to be by your side. I wanted to watch you take on the world, I wanted to be the person who told you that everything was alright and make it true, I wanted to hide away with you every chance that we got. I wanted so many things with you, for you, that I got too caught up in the moment and because of that I can’t be with you right now. I wish I could explain to you what’s happened, God knows I’ve told you everything since the moment we met, and yet I can’t put you through this, not after everything you’ve been through. I know you're going to hate me but I have to hope that one day you’ll forgive me and, once this blows over, maybe give me a chance to show you why we belong together. I wish more than anything to be with you one day but if all we had was last night than I’m grateful that I even got one night to be with you. If I do get to be with you again, I look forward to making this up to you. I’ll see you in a couple of weeks. Love, Bucky.” Steve read out loud, which was then followed by a huge silence.

“Is it me or was that the most romantic and non-terrible break up ever?” Peggy finally pointed out.

“Isn’t it annoying?” I asked.

“Yeah, I see why you’re so confused.”

“And not that angry.”

“I mean, he said all these wonderful things and he made it seem like this temporary thing. I don’t know whether to be mad at him or sad or happy. I just...I don’t know. Which is somehow worse.”

“Yeah…”

“But it does raise a question.” Steve said.

“What?”

“‘I’ll see you in a couple of weeks?’ He obviously has something planned.”

“Is anything supposed to be happening in a couple of weeks from the time he left the note?”

“He doesn’t know about it.” I mumbled.

“What?” Peggy asked.

“Nothing.”

“No, what are you talking about?” There was a long pause, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to tell them or not, but then again I did come to them for help.

“I resigned.”

“What?!” They both said at the same time.

“My last day is next Friday.”

“You quit because of him?”

“Yes and no. I knew that I wouldn’t be able to see him and not feel completely broken up over him leaving. But this whole thing with him, with the show, made me realize that I wasn’t even living in the real world. They call that reality tv...when it’s all fake. Everything was fake and I fell in love with theatre, with portraying something real, not fooling people into thinking something is real. Working for the network was only supposed to be temporary, it was a way for me to save up some money so I could do what I wanted. I don’t have that problem anymore and I need to get back to reality, back to how I started.”

“What you have with Bucky is real.”

“Yeah, which makes this pain real.”

“So what are you going to do?”

“I have...something lined up.”

“Like what?” Saved by the bell, or the knock I guess, we all turned and looked at the front door.

“That must be the pizza we ordered.” Steve said, moving from the couch.

“Let me get it, it’s the least I can do.” I offered, moving off the couch and in front of him.

“You’re out of a job.” Peggy pointed out.

“And I still have $25 million to my name.”

“What?!” They both said at the same time...again. I think that was the first time all week that I genuinely laughed. I could feel the smile on my face as I opened the door...and I could feel it fall a few seconds later.

We both just stared at each other as if there was nothing to say despite all the questions I had. After what seemed like forever he finally spoke.

“Hi.” Was all he said...that was all he had to say?!

My heart was telling me to say something to him, to ask him what happened, to get the answers that I needed. My head was thinking something completely different.

Before I could even register what was happening I had slapped him hard across the face followed by a slam of the door.

“Did you just slap the pizza man?” Peggy asked.

“No.”

“Oh...you take him, I’ll take her?” She said to Steve.

“Yeah.”

“No, I want to talk to him.”

“You just slapped him.”

“I was angrier than I thought.” I opened the door before they could stop me and moved out of the way so he could come in. “I’m not apologizing.”

“I deserved it.”

There was an awkward silence that followed and I just watched him, not really wanting to look away but not really wanting to look at him either.

“Well, this awkward silence is awesome and all but is there a reason you stopped by Bucky?” Steve asked.

“I just didn’t want to sit at my apartment all alone, but I can leave, you guys were probably doing something.”

“You can swing by tomorrow.”

“That sounds good.” He turned to leave, but I couldn’t just let him leave.

“Bucky, wait.”

“Yeah?”

“Why now?”

“What?”

“You used to tell me everything, we’ve always trusted one another. So why now, why this secret?” He looked at me with sad eyes, eyes that looked like he wanted to tell me and yet when he opened his mouth nothing came out. “You can’t tell me, can you?” I feel like I looked pretty sad, which seemed to catch his attention. He moved closer to me and placed his hands on both sides of my cheeks, holding me like he used to.

“I really want to, It’s been killing me. It’s like I’ve...I’ve been gagged, you know. I can want to say everything that I’ve been holding back and yet I can’t. Я хочу вернуться в Москву. Я хочу, чтобы все вернулось к тому, как это было. (I want to go back to Moscow. I want everything back to how it was.)

“Я также.” (Me too.)

And then as he usually does, he did the unexpected. When he left me alone in Moscow I had always assumed that I had done something to turn him away from me. And then the more I thought about the note the more confused I got, wondering why it seemed like a temporary pause in our relationship. And yet I had always assumed that we could tell each other anything, and if he couldn’t tell me what was happening now then something must have changed, right? So the very last thing I expected him to do was kiss me.

As much as I didn’t want to give in to him, I could feel myself physically sink against him and relax into the kiss. After not having seen him for a week, I couldn’t help but take this moment and remember exactly the way that he made me feel before he left. It was easy for me to love him, I just wasn’t sure how easy it would be to forget him, or even if I wanted to. There were so many thoughts going through my head, that I was never going to get him out.

He pulled away from me, holding me for just a second more before letting me go completely.

“I’ll see you soon.” He said before he left. I watched the door until my brain caught up with what happened, despite not understanding it at all. I turned around to face Steve and Peggy with a confused look on my face.

“Please tell me that you guys just saw that.”

“Yeah, why?” Steve said.

“I wanted to make sure I didn’t dream that.”

“No, that happened.”

“You guys are so cute together!” Peggy said way to excited.

“Well I’m glad you think so, because I’m just more confused.”

“I think I can help there.”

“How?”

“I think I know what’s happening.”

“What?”

“Something funny happened when he was talking to you.”

“Like?”

“When he was talking about being gagged, he looked at me.”

“He looked at you?” Steve asked.

“Yeah.”

“I noticed that too. I couldn’t see where exactly he was looking but he looked away from me when he said that.”

“So I have a theory, one that would make a lot of sense.”

“Okay.”

“A gag order.”

“Okay?”

“A gag order prevents lawyers, witnesses, and other people involved in a lawsuit from giving information to media sources or an unauthorized third party.”

“But what lawsuit? There’s nothing going on that would involve him.”

“Nothing on your grandmother or Jackson’s lawsuits?”

“Not that I know of. I mean he punched Jackson, but I don’t think anything happened after that that would cause a lawsuit.”

“Okay…”

“What about his contract? It’s the only other legal thing I could think of.”

“I didn’t see anything in his contract that he had violated or would give cause to a lawsuit. But…”

“But what?”

“You have a contract with the network right?”

“Of course.”

“Then maybe it’s your contract that’s the problem.”

“My contract?”

“The whole point of the dating show is for him to date the other women on the show, or coworkers. So in his contract there can’t be anything that prohibits him from seeing coworkers when that’s the whole plot of the show.”

“Right.”

“But your contract could have the clause just like most other workplaces.”

“Okay, so let’s say that this is possible. First there’s no proof that Bucky and I have been anything more than friends. Second can they bring a lawsuit against me because I decided to date a coworker?”

“Yes and no. No if all they had was a suspicion. Yes, if they have proof and you’ve given reason to.”

“Given reason to?”

“Caused them problems, cost them money. For instance, let’s say that Jackson decided to charge Bucky with assault charges for that punch. Because it happened on network property it would technically be up to the network to cover the legal fees, which can stack up. They could say that because the two of you were together it caused Bucky to be reckless. They can twist things however they want if they have proof.”

“The gag order?”

“You and Bucky aren’t married so lawyers could use him against you. The gag order keeps him from telling you anything. And him keeping his distance from you could help prove to the network that you weren’t seeing each other and not give them the grounds for a lawsuit.”

“So would this ever end?”

“There is a way.”

“What?”

“He has to choose someone on the show.”

“Great.”

“The one thing that always threw me off about his contract was that there was never anything that stated what would happen if he didn’t complete the show, like if he quit for instance.”

“How is that bad?”

“It leaves a loophole, a pretty good one for the network. See, if he doesn’t finish the show it leaves a hole in the contract that could allow the network to set up other shows for him to be on, as well as the two remaining girls. The contract is completely fulfilled when he chooses a girl on the show.”

“And he won’t be a coworker anymore.”

“Which means if he decides to see you after the show is over then they can’t hang that over your head.”

“A couple of weeks, the letter said a couple of weeks, like when the show is over.”

“And you’ll be done with the network.”

“So if this is true...and that’s a big if, you think I should wait this out?”

“I think he has a reason for what he did and I think that he loves you. And if he says a couple of weeks then maybe hear him out in a couple of weeks.”

“In all of the years that I’ve known Bucky, him leaving like he did was the most out of character thing he had ever done. And I know how much he loves you, so waiting for the show to be over and waiting for him to explain, is the least you could ever give for a lifetime of happiness. Some people never meet the person that they’re supposed to be with for the rest of their lives. So if all you have to do is wait a week to be with him, then I say wait.” Steve chipped in, saying something for the first time in a while.

“Okay.”

“Okay?” They both asked.

“Okay.” I could feel the smile on my face just thinking about it. One week. It seemed that I had waited my whole life to be with him, so I could do one more week.

With the rest of the night we watched movies and finally got our pizza. Steve ran out and bought us some ice cream and for the first time since Bucky left me alone in Moscow, I had a really great night.

PART THIRTEEN

Tell Me What You Think Here

Tags: @fangirl1802, @seargantbcky, @lust-for-pan, @38leticia, @barnes-and-noble-girl, @karipaleta, @capandbuck, @camillechan, @findacauseandserveit, @audasia25, @kendallefire , @alicerozenju, @snuggleducky, @mell-bell, @lifeasabookbutterfly, @the-red-world-of-jess-chibi, @iamwarrenspeace, @ssweet-empowerment, @chook007 , @juliagolia87, @jjsoccer11, @smol-flower-kiddo, @mrsdaamneron, @isaxhorror, @barnesism, @thatgirlrowan, @linki-locks11, @janeyboo, @vgurl18, @guera31, @bornfortherainydays, @carryonmy-assbutt,

102 notes · View notes

j-k-notrowling · 5 years

Text

Untitled

Hi there! Spoilers up front: this is a gratuitously long-winded “thank you,” not an Ask (also I’m 31 and don’t know how to Social Media so apologies if this is the wrong page/tab/link/widget).

--(oh actually it’s a blog post now because of course I can’t send an “Ask” this stupidly long see? wasn’t kidding about that Social Media thing...)--

I started writing my first book in the Fall of 2016. Before that I’d only written songs. One day I got an idea which didn’t fit within the usual rhymes or rhythms. I tried and tried, but kept on hitting a wall. In addition, I was fed up with the whole “business” of music—the fragile egos, the politics of being in a band, all that. One morning I sat down at my HP desktop computer (again...31) and opened up a blank Word document. I stared at it with murderous intent for a long time, but nothing happened. So I grabbed the nearest book off the shelf (Crash by J.G. Ballard), opened it, and began to type out the first paragraph, copying the sentences line by line. I wanted to see what it felt like — my clumsy fingers pecking at the keyboard, observing how the words fell into place with a musical cadence and tempo almost prophetic, as though the ink were destined to dry in this exact form upon the page, the machinery of its tumultuous birth and impeccable design skillfully concealed. I paused and looked out the window. There was a squirrel on the deck, I remember. And then I saw it. Not outside but inside my own head, behind my eyelids. The song, the one I’d been struggling to write, I saw that it could be a story. I saw it had a clear beginning, middle, and end. I saw a world of characters opening doors to other worlds, other stories, other characters. This was life-changing shit. Suddenly I was a little boy at my first baseball game, drinking my first ice-cold Coke, surrounded by old men chain-smoking Marlboro Reds and muttering dirty words I’d never heard before about the [EXPLETIVES DELETED] on the opposing team. I’d discovered a fire fueled by the psychic anarchy of its own discovery, a Moebius-strip of dramatic invention, a repository for all the pop-cultural turds floating around inside the cracked porcelain toilet bowl of my skull. I wrote prose every night after work. I never thought about what I was doing. I never once stopped to check word counts or page counts. I never thought about sticking to an outline, making sure my story adhered to a specific plot structure, none of that. I wrote like a man in love. Delirious, overheated teenage love. Wear-my-ill-fitting-letterman’s-jacket love (is this also A Thing™️ in Canada?). Stupid stupid stupid love, naive and hormonal and precious and retrospectively mortifying. I’d turn off the world, turn on the music, sit back and watch the words sashay straight into my lap. It took 2-3 months before the ruthless scourge known as Self Doubt farted in my private elevator. Am I doing this right? How many words are in a book, anyway? How many pages? How long is this going to take? Is this an effective way to impress women and/or get laid? Am I writing a novel or a novella? The fuck is “flash fiction”? Are you allowed to write actual books in Microsoft Word? Does it matter that my free trial version of Microsoft Word expires in 30 days? They’re bluffing, right? And so on. I compared my own writing with that of authors I admired; subsequently, I couldn’t get out of bed for a week. I watched 40+ hours of “Kitchen Nightmares” reruns (it’s. the. same. fucking. formula. every. single. episode.) and nursed my shame with bowl after bowl of strawberry ice cream. To think — I’d TOLD people about this fool’s errand, and sooner or later I’d have to show them precisely how awful a writer I was... I turned to the Internet for advice. At first, it seemed like a godsend. There was such a litany of knowledge, so many pro-tips and life hacks and proven formulas for success. This was how I stumbled across your channel. I found other channels which offered more straightforward “DO IT LIKE THIS YOU FUCKING IDIOT” instructions, but I still enjoyed yours the most. I lol-ed at your jokes. I remember a few videos where you spoke highly about All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr, which remains among the most achingly beautiful books I’ve ever read. Also you’re Canadian, and you guys just generally Human better than we (Americans) Human. ...and here my troubles began. See, the more I tried to adhere to word count goals, the more I tried to properly organize the scenes on my Scrivener™️ virtual cork board, the less I enjoyed the actual process of writing. So I tried other things, based upon other writers’ suggestions: cut the adverbs, write in the morning, write at night, write during your lunch break, write an outline, stick to the outline, write x amount of pages per day, write x number of hours per day, spend x amount of hours drafting and x amount of hours editing, etc. But nothing I tried made me feel confident in my writing. I started actively hating it, to be honest. I dreaded the cursor and the infinite white void. Then I would watch more writing videos and feel guilty about my lack of ambition, my inability to accomplish simple tasks. It’s only a few thousand words, dude — just get in there and do it. Eventually I would. I’d grumble and feel miserable and stay locked in my little writing dungeon all night, ignoring my friends’ texts and phone calls, and the next day I’d hate everything I wrote, trash it, and start over. Then, when I had no more writing left to hate, I started hating myself. The words in my head turned malignant, putrefied into spongy, black tumors. I’d spend all day at work consumed by thoughts and ideas and goals! goals! goals! for my book, then I’d come home and stare at a blinking cursor and wonder why I was such a worthless failure. I couldn’t write the way these other writers did, no matter what I tried. But I still wanted to write. Needed to, in that yearning, terrible way I suspect you understand. I don’t know why The Internet subconsciously invites us to flay ourselves before total strangers, but it does. So I will. Shit got Dark™️, Shaelin. I gained 50 pounds, started living like a hoarder, stopped hanging out with my friends, stopped leaving the house altogether. I kept the curtains closed so my neighbors wouldn’t see the piles of empty take-out boxes stacked up on the kitchen table. I traded the pleasures and contradictions and beguiling enigmas of women for the 24-hour neon distraction of cheap porno. My cat Maggie, basically the only friend I had during this time, got cancer. I watched her suffer and waste away because I couldn’t bear the thought of putting her to sleep and coming home alone to an empty, filthy house. Eventually she died and I hated myself even more for not being able to save her. I wore the same pair of pants for six months. I’d go to work and sit at my desk all day and do absolutely nothing (I was the accounting manager at a small company, technically my own “boss,” so I got away with this for a shocking, frankly heroic amount of time). Then I simply stopped going to work. And I kept torturing myself with those stupid goals and word counts, never happy with the end result, resigned to feel like a failure every day. I remember watching your “Spill the Tea” video back when it was initially posted. Watching it now is eerie, because you describe exactly what I was going through, what I was feeling. Like, to the “T” (see what I did there? #WordPlay #LitPuns101). I’d never experienced anxiety/depression before, so I didn’t really understand what was happening to me. Not that it mattered, because by that point the damage was done. I couldn’t recognize and isolate the real problem. I’d given up. Even though you said a lot of things in that video I desperately, desperately needed to hear, I didn’t listen. I didn’t want to listen to you, because you were one of Them™️. Your eyes were bright and your voice sounded friendly and encouraging, but your name wasn’t McCarthy or Pynchon or DeLillo or Nabokov. You were just a kid. What could you possibly know that I didn’t? In January of this year I called a local psychiatric hospital and told them I was planning to kill myself. I never harbored any true intentions of doing that, but I figured they’d offer me a nice three-week vacation in a padded cell. Considering the circumstances, it honestly seemed like a relief. I ended up quitting my job, selling my house, and moving back in with my parents 300 miles away. I started seeing a therapist once a week (still do, for the record). So far I’ve lost 30 pounds of the 50 pound surplus I acquired. I kept watching your videos, even though I was no longer in the market for writing advice (#JustHereForTheSnark). You kept me lol-ing through some bad days and weeks and months. I’d listen to you talk about problems with the writing community and nod my head like an old woman in church (#ShaelinSermons™️ #SheTeachesANDShePreaches), but I still hadn’t made the connection with my own issues. I swore off writing completely, went back to playing music. Cover songs in coffee shops and family restaurants. It was fun for awhile. I genuinely felt happier. But my story was still an old pebble poking around in my shoe...calling out, issuing playground taunts, drawing hairy cartoon dicks on my forehead while I slept. About a month ago I stared down another blank page, my first since experiencing that fun-sized nervous breakdown earlier this year. I closed my eyes and heard your voice in my head. “You can do whatever you want.” I had no goals, no arbitrary quotas to meet. I wrote a few lines, stopped, fixed a couple things I wasn’t satisfied with, and then went on with my day. I thought about what I’d written, sure, but I didn’t worry or spend the whole day stressing out. The next morning I read over what I’d done, and I didn’t hate it. I thought it was actually pretty good, funny and off-kilter and a little/lotta fucked up. So I sat down and wrote some more. Took some things out, re-worded stuff, dressed up the bones in silver and pearls. Addition and subtraction. Before I knew it, I’d finished a whole page. Then another. And then the hair on the back of my neck stood up, because I remembered: This is how it felt at the beginning. Back when I was young and love-struck and writing only to catch those moments of pure levitation, that devilish tickle, that rush of blood propelled by my own wild heart. It’s been a rough road, but I finally found what I’d lost. I figured out how to write again and enjoy it. And ultimately, the best writing advice I received didn’t come from McCarthy or Pynchon or DeLillo or Nabokov. It came from a young woman in another country with a camera and a nose ring and a big tapestry and bigger dreams which run parallel to my own. So thank you. Thank you for taking time out of your busy life and braving the Steaming Pile™️ that is The Internet to offer words of empathy and encouragement to complete strangers. Thank you for the wisdom you share. Thank you for being who you are. Know that tonight the stars shine brighter as a result. They do for me, at least. (Also I’m sincerely sorry about the absurd length of this “Ask” wherein no actual questions were posed and nothing substantial was communicated beyond a simple yet torturously delayed “thank you” kthxbye #longlivethenewtapestry

—Justin)

1 note · View note

rusticsqualid · 5 years

Text

Why Arrowverse has me depressed

The Arrowverse, arrow universe, named because Arrow was the first show in the set of seemingly connected superhero shows. Why isn’t the MCU called “Tonyverse” because Iron Man was the first movie? That’s just stupid. It’s the Marvel universe within the boundaries of it’s medium. If the shows themselves are named after the main hero, does Arrowverse revolve all around Arrow? Stupid question. Of course not. Then, why not just call it the DC TV-verse? Equally stupid question. There are other shows on other channels. You can’t generalize CW as all DCTV. Why then, have we generalized a portion of Marvel movies as MCU, calling it such as excluding the Marvel franchises that have been unable to be included? Haha, maybe MCU should be Tonyverse then, because, you know, Deadpool and X-Men are Marvel, too.

Anyway, time to get to the point. We’ve seen how bad DC movies have done compared to Marvel movies, but is DC in general a failure when compared to Marvel? The MCU works. It has synergy that DC doesn’t have, it’s fluid, so well connected that every movie is “Mi casa es su casa” in terms of other characters showing up in movies where they would otherwise not belong. On the other hand, DC, at least Arrowverse, is holding itself together with glue. I can’t speak for the movies since the only one from DC’s rebooted universe I’ve seen is Batman vs. Superman. It seems that the interactions between shows is forced and only happens when it is absolutely most convenient for the writers. They are trying to establish a mythos, but the lore and rules seems to be discounted for the sake of drafting narratives. It is becoming painfully apparent the amateur job CW is doing at having an interconnected universe.

My first grievance is Supergirl. The platonic chemistry between Flash and Supergirl made the CBS show a welcomed addition to the CW’s Arrowverse, but the “Crossover” between their two shows was no such thing. When I think of Crossover, I think of every other crossover I’ve seen which is a multi-episode arc where each episode happens on a different show, but the characters from each show still show up on the others. We never got a Flash episode with Supergirl, so it wasn’t a crossover. It was just Flash making a guest appearance, because the writers said “Let’s have Supergirl and Flash race for no other reason than for the hell of it and they are both played by co-stars of another show so bonus points for us.” I guess we couldn’t have expected much from Supergirl pre-CW. Season 2 on the other hand... most frustrating finale ever. Kara was all “boo hoo Mon-El, you must go into an unknown region of space to survive and I won’t see you again” and I was like “Hello!? You have a device that can open a breach to another earth where he could be an ally to your allies and where you could VISIT HIM ANYTIME!” but no, she only thinks to use this important plot device (pun intended) to go to a wedding. Now, since Winn is no longer part of the show, the Winn/Cisco geeking out I was hoping for isn’t going to happen.

My next grievance is with the way the Arrowverse handles time travel. So before we had Legends, we had Flash. Four years later, I think CW is still fleshing out the concepts/rules of time travel because there are apparent plot holes. So at the beginning of Flash’s third season, Jay Garrick explained that once time is altered, the iteration of the earth you go to is a new one and there is no way to go back to the old one. How then do the Legends always seem to end up in the same version of Earth-1 as always despite the fact that they alter time EVERY episode? Are the rules of time travel themselves different for Speedsters? Then, we see Eobard Thawne show up in Legends of Tomorrow. The Legends just couldn’t hold their own against him. Who better to fight a speedster than a SPEEDSTER? The way they can time travel, they can return to when they left as if they never left at all. The Legends could have called upon Barry to help them stop Thawne and he could have been back to Central City two seconds later just in time to stop Savitar. Yeah, Barry would show up on two shows at the same time, but for all intents and purposes, the rest of the Flash would chronologically be happening after the end of Legends of Tomorrow. Speaking of the end... the show established that the Legends would break the timeline if they interacted with previous versions of themselves, which Barry has done, and he didn’t break the timeline like they did. Come on, CW, get it together! The next season comes around, and we are introduced to the Time Bureau, an organization formed by Rip for the purpose of protecting the timeline (I think “fixing” is more accurate, but anyway...), but maybe it should be called the Legends Bureau. If the Bureau (and the Legends) really is/are about protecting and preserving, maintaining the timeline, why have they done nothing about the current situation with Nora West Allen? After spending an entire season putting an end to Anachronisms, preventing major changes to the timeline, why are they turning a blind eye to someone from 2049 in 2018/2019? Nora already caused a major change. Cicada is a different Cicada. This should have alerted the Bureau/Legends. Shouldn’t she be imprisoned like Nora Dahrk, or is it okay because she’s the good Nora. “We don’t lock up the hero daughters of our hero friends.” Biased, much? So Nora gets to save Barry, but Sara can’t save Laurel? These inconsistencies make my head hurt.

My final grievance is with Elseworlds. I think Crisis on Earth-X spent more time on Earth-X than the others earths, so maybe it’s okay, but isn’t it Earth-38′s time to host a crossover. The first crossover was Earth-1, the second was Earth-1 when not Earth-X, and here we are spending most of our time on Earth-1 again. We have yet to see whether or not the heroes will end up on Earth-38 or whether it’s heroes will simply just come to Earth-1 again, but I am as disappointed as I am hyped. Is this like Flash? Three seasons of speedsters than non-speedsters but in this case three Earth-1 crossovers followed by a Earth-38 one? We’ve seen Flash on Earth-38, but what about Team Flash, Arrow and Team Arrow? The main plots of the crossovers have been rooted in Earth-1, but how many more years until we get a main crossover plot on Earth-38 that forces Kara to call upon the heroes of Earth-1 for assistance? That is what I was hoping for for this year, but that’s not going to happen until next year at the earliest. Maybe not this crossover, but future ones should include characters in “Purgatory” such as Vixen and Jesse Quick.

While the Marvel movies are peas in the same pod, these shows seem to remain fragmented, isolated from one another until the writers deem it absolutely necessary for them to interact. It’s a shame that they can’t be more involved with each other and the consequences of the current state of the Arrowverse is breeding chaos and confusion.

#Arroverse #Arrow #Flash #Supergirl #Legends #Legends of Tomorrow #DC #TV #CW #DCTV #Crossover #Time #Plot #Narrative #Earth #Multiverse

6 notes · View notes

alia-turin · 6 years

Note

I want angst, I want pain... Can I ask you to write a fic or a scenario (of your choice) with such a scene: Gladio is quarreling with his girlfriend and and shouting in a fit of anger: "What a bother you are!". And after it the girl goes away and takes her belongings after saying that she don't want to see Gladio anymore. And you can choice, whether there will be happy or unhappy end.

I wrote that and I realized I haven’t been writing a lot of angst recently and I am so rusty. I need some suffering in my life. Hope you find that to your liking angsty anon!

Fic Title: A Broken HeartRating [Warnings]: G [some swearing, mention of depression and anxiety]Pairing: Gladio x ReaderSummary: Reader and Gladio have been dating for some time now, but Gladio’s work schedule proves to be one of the biggest challenges in their relationship.Note: As mentioned in the warning section there is mention of depression and anxiety, so please proceed with cation

If you feel like supporting this writer consider buying me a coffee: Ko-Fi

Tagging: @birdsandivory @lazarustrashpit @jojopitcher @a-manville-meow @theyearofdiamonddogs @amicitonia @ladychocoberry @akiza-hades-rose

Gladio hasbeen busy recently and you were trying your best to not to make big drama out ofit. You knew what you were getting yourself into once you two started dating.He was after all the Prince’s shield and was going to take his father’s placeone day. You have been patient with all his trainings and missions and youunderstood the burden that was on his shoulder. It killed you on the insidethat there were times you would see each other just once a week, but you neverlet it show. You were happy that you can see him and that is what you showed.But every time he didn’t call you when he was away, every time his mission gota bit longer than you expected you were getting upset. Rationally you knew itwasn’t his fault, he couldn’t neglect his duties because you were lonely andyou wouldn’t want him to do that.

But hidingall these feelings and loneliness deep inside didn’t help. Time passed and youdidn’t get used to the situation. You tried to tell Gladio how you feel, notthat you expected him to do something, you knew he couldn’t, but a least totake it off your chest and let him know how you feel. You tried doing that fewtimes but he went on the defense, thinking you were blaming him for thesituation and just asked you what you expected from him, it was his job. Theseconversations ended like that, you would just keep it to yourself, neither ofyou would talk for about ten minutes and then everything would continue asusual. Nothing was usual. The feelings of loneliness and anxiety weredestroying you. You would get depressed every time he forgot to text you andtell you he was going to be late. At times you couldn’t sleep, worried thatsomething bad had happened to him, binge watching the news hoping and simultaneouslyfearing that you might hear something. Something bad.

Today was oneof these days. He was late, and worse he didn’t even message you. He wasn’tcouple of hours late, he was days late. You had texted his sister, worried thatsomething might have happened, but Iris didn’t know anything. In her typicalcheerful tone, she had just responded that maybe they were just buys and therewas nothing to worry about. She did offer to ask Cor or her father if they knewsomething but you refused. You were ashamed of your feelings, you didn’t wantto sound like the crazy girlfriend that is trying to control him, even if partof your mind knew that it was normal to worry if there was no news from him fordays. She was probably right it was nothing. Eventually that night Gladio camehome, you were half asleep, half awake on the couch when he walked in.

“Hey why areyou not in bed?” he dropped the bag on the ground and walked towards you,kneeling next to the couch and trying to kiss your forehead but you pulled awayas best as you could.

“I waswaiting for you.” Anger, worry and loneliness suddenly went through you at thesame time, your voice shaking and sounding annoyed.

“I’m here,let’s go to bed.” He tried to grab you and carry you to the bedroom, but youpulled away. That was enough. You needed to talk.

“Gladio, no.We need to talk.” You got up and he followed.

“Can we do ittomorrow?” his voice sounded tired and you felt for him, but no. You knew howthat would go. Like every time he says can we talk tomorrow and then tomorrowis already too late. Tomorrow you wouldn’t be angry and he would do somethingsilly but nice for you like buying your breakfast and all the lonely nights andnerves that you had wasted in the past days would be forgotten. No, that had tobe said now, regardless of the consequences.

“No, we can’t.”you said quietly and took a deep breath. “I was worried about you…I cried myself tosleep that’s why I was on the couch. I was staring at my phone wondering if youwould come home today or if you would you even text me to tell me you are notcoming home.”

“Babe, I’msorry I was busy…” he tried to step towards you, but you backed away. That wasnot going to be fixed with hug and a kiss.

“Busy? You werebusy every single minute? You didn’t sleep, you didn’t eat, you were workingevery second? You didn’t have ten seconds to pull your phone out of your pocketand message me hey sorry I am not coming home today. How long does it take youto write a message? An hour?” you were feeling all these emotions going throughyour head. You were angry, you were upset, you were sad. You wanted some sortof validation that you weren’t crazy, that being concerned after three days ofnothing was actually normal.

“I didn’tknow you were worried.” He said in his defense.

You stared athim and realized he didn’t get it. He really didn’t get it. Of course, he didn’t.He wasn’t the one waiting for you for days and he wasn’t the one who watchedthe news every night fearful that he might hear something bad happened. You alwaystexted him, even if you were going to be five minutes late, you never left himhanging regardless of the reason.

“Gladio I worry!”you finally said through tears, the emotions had taken the best of you. “Everytime you are late, every time you don’t tell me that you will be absent formore than you had expected, I worry and I think the worse.”

“That I amcheating on you?” he gave you a smug smile which annoyed you. He really didn’tget it. “Babe, I love you I wouldn’t cheat on you, it’s just work.”

“I don’t careif you cheat on me! Fuck, cheating would be preferable to what I am thinking. I’drather you have your dick sucked by someone else than being injured or worse.” Yougave up. It was pointless he wouldn’t understand no matter what you said. “Ijust need to know you are okay. I do not need to control you or know where youare every second of your life. I just need to know if you are not coming homewhen you said you will. I need to know if you will be late. Every time you don’ttext me when you said you would I watch the stupid news fearing that I wouldhear how the shield’s son got his fucking head eaten by demon.”

“What a botheryou are!” Gladio said this time a bit angrier. “I’m fine, I didn’t think it’ssuch a big deal. I told you I will be back on Tuesday…”

“It’s Friday,Gladio!” you interrupted him. “Three days! Three days no word from you.”

“It happens!”was his response and that send you over the edge. You walked past him, ignoringhim calling your name. “What are you doing?” he asked after you started pilingyour clothes on the bed.

“Leaving.” Youanswered, your eyes filled with tears.

“Because Ididn’t text?” he laughed. “A bit overdramatic.”

“Because youdon’t even try to understand what I am telling you!” you walked in the closetand pulled down a suitcase, he tried to stop you, but you just brushed pasthim. “You assume I am worried that you cheat and I told you is not that. I toldyou I was worried about your safety not that I try to control you. You say isnot big deal. Here is a question for you. What if I walk outside of the wallright now. I don’t know, on a trip with my friends let’s say. I tell you I willbe back tomorrow, but I don’t come back. Another day passes and I am still notback, no word from me. Three days pass and I’m neither back nor showing any signsof life. What would you do?”

He looked atyou as you were talking and packing. You could swear that in his eyes the pointfinally got across, but he wasn’t saying anything.

“I’m lonelyGladio.” You finally said as you closed the suitcase. “You don’t know how mucha message from you improves that. Even if you are not here, just texting megood night does miracles. It’s not the same as you being here but reminds me Iam not completely alone.”

“You are notalone.” He finally said.

“Yes, I am!” youthought for a second if you were ready to do what you were about to do and theanswer was yes. That was for the best. “I cry myself every night to sleep, I stareat my phone all day at work. Every time someone sends me a message I jumphoping it is you and when I see it isn’t I break inside. I tried telling youthat before, but you never listened, just like now.” You dragged your suitcasethrough the door and looked at him. “I’m sorry Gladio. I love you, but I alsocannot put my mental health on the line every couple of weeks.”

He saidsomething after you, but you didn’t listen, you were too busy crying and tryingnot to trip.

On the nextday he texted you saying that he wants to apologize, you ignored the text. Hetexted you back few hours later saying that he knew you had seen the message,you ignored it again. The third message was him being angry, saying that heknew what you were doing, that you were trying to do the exact same thing youwere accusing him of, and that it was childish. It took real restrain not torespond to that. You weren’t accusing him, he had been dismissive towards yourissue and calling you childish because you cared was just another proof he didn’tunderstand what was happening.

Next day hedidn’t text, you thought he finally gave up or was busy with work. It waspainful for you. He was your soulmate and you loved him more than anything butyou had also realized that love won’t sustain you all these troublesome nightsbetween anxiety and tears.

On the thirdday as you were coming from work he was there at your door. You expected thatmight happen, but just seeing him broke you even further.

“We need totalk.” He said as you were unlocking the door.

“I don’t wantto talk and you are trespassing.” You opened the door and were about to shut itin his face but he places his hand on it and blocked it.

“Okay. I needto talk and I want you to listen to me.” He said serious.

“Gladio,there is nothing that you can want from me.” You sighed. “I have been tellingyou for months how I feel. You ignored me. I cannot do that anymore, I cannotsubject myself to that. Please, move your hand away.”

“I won’t damnit!” he slapped his palm hard against the door and you jumped. You knew he won’thurt you even if he was angry, but your instincts still made you move. “Look, Iwas a dick, okay. I’m sorry. You are right, I cannot do that to you. I neverrealized you worry.” You started shaking your head.

“It’s not justthat Gladio. You dismissed me. You didn’t even try to understand. I had toleave so you can understand? What does that mean? That every time I have aproblem I need to leave you so you can have three days to think over it?” yougrabbed the handle and tried to close the door again. “Gladio, no. We cannot doit like that. That is not healthy.”

“I didn’tcome to beg my way back.” He removed his arm from the door, but his body wasstill in the way. “But I want to fix things. I’m leaving however, with thePrince. I don’t know for how long. Maybe days, maybe weeks. I will know afterthe signing of that damn treaty with the empire. I cannot fix things while I amaway. So, I want you to allow me to message you. Please. Please let me call youor text you. Please respond.”

You justnodded unable to do anything else. He had broken your heart once already andyou had the feeling you just punched your ticket to have it broken again.

#gladio #gladiolus amicitia #gladio amicitia #gladio x reader #gladio/reader #my writing

59 notes · View notes

morningsound15 · 6 years

Note

Can u do all the odd fic questions on that ask post for perdition? Or really any of ur other fics, I just like hearing abt this kind of stuff

FYI THIS IS VERY LONG I APOLOGIZE

I’m putting most of it under the cut because I don’t want to clog up all the dashes…

1: What inspired you to write the fic this way?

What a question. I’ve answered something similar to this, mainly the question: What was your inspiration in writing this fic? And I’ve been pretty open about that, generally. (If you’re interested, there are a few longer posts about that and some other insights into my thought process linked here: x x x x x x )

But essentially, I wrote this fic because at the time I was going through a sort of similar situation to Chloe. I was kind of seeing this girl who had a boyfriend… it’s a pretty long and complicated story that I won’t go into for privacy’s sake (both hers and mine). But it wasn’t my finest hour, and definitely not something I’m proud of. So anyway, things had just ended with this girl and I was trying to work through some feelings that I had about it (a lot of anger and confusion and a little heartbreak, mostly), and I was looking for a character/pairing to write this specific situation for, and Bechloe kind of just… came to me. Like it just fell into my lap. And it made more sense than anything else, and when I started writing it just… poured out of me. Like I wrote the first four chapters in a feverish two days where I basically couldn’t stop typing.

But I’ve gotten a lot of questions about why I chose to write the fic the way I did. The question I get most often is basically, why did I write the fic from Chloe’s POV exclusively? Especially during the early days of Perdition, before I wrote the Beca interlude chapter, I had a LOT of people who were practically begging me for Beca’s POV, for her side of the story, for some explanation as to WHY she was doing what she was doing. And I was really hesitant to do that, because I was hesitant to break from the fixed person, singular POV. And I want to explain why. I know I have before, but I want to do it again.

I wanted to write Perdition from exclusively Chloe’s POV because I wanted the story to really focus on her emotions and her involvement in the affair. I feel like so many cheating stories are from the POV of the cheater, or the person being cheated on, and rarely on the ramifications felt by the person who’s being cheated with. I wanted to explore that dynamic.

But I also really wanted to focus on Chloe as a person and as a character. I felt drawn to her as a character partly because we know so little about her in the movies. Beca is the main character, the audience’s established perspective, so we know a lot about her and how she thinks and operates. Because Chloe was basically a blank slate, I felt like I could dig deeper into her character and imagine a lot more backstory for her. I wanted to explore her as a character, and as a writer I felt like she really offered more opportunities than Beca.

I eventually wrote the Beca POV chapter because I really wanted to make sure that both Beca and Chloe were sympathetic characters. I wanted to emphasize the fact that Chloe was providing just one perspective of the affair, and because of that, she was somewhat of an unreliable narrator. I wanted to emphasize that there were two sides to every story, and just because we’ve only seen Chloe’s side of things doesn’t mean that she’s blameless or that she’s completely right and has done nothing wrong. Though I wanted to focus on her/explore her journey, I didn’t want readers to think of her as a faultless victim. (I was also getting a lot of comments criticizing Beca’s character for being heartless/cruel, and I didn’t think that that was the case. I thought their situation was messy and confusing and hard on both of them, and I didn’t want people to think I was using her as a scapegoat to just like… assassinate her character.)

In my mind, no character is perfect. There’s no such thing as a black-and-white situation. No one is inherently good or bad. They’re just people, who make good and bad choices, who make mistakes, who let things get out of hand. I really wanted to be clear on that. So I ended up breaking with my plan and writing the interlude chapter. I think, in the end, I’m glad that I did.

3: What’s your favorite line of narration?

Good Lord. This fic is so long… There are so many lines I like. How do I even pick?

I have a couple favorite lines of narration. These are just some of them (unsurprisingly, a lot of them are chapter summaries):

From Chapter 1:

(Earlier in the night Chloe stumbled over to Beca on swaying feet, grabbed her hands, and proclaimed that they were going to be “fast friends,” and Beca laughed and winked at her and made some joke about being naked and Chloe felt her stomach bottom out so suddenly that she wondered if she was tipping over backwards.)

From Chapter 4:

Fat Amy showing her vag to the leader of the Free World is not exactly how Chloe envisioned starting her year.

From Chapter 6:

But when she’s on that stage, performing for all those people… when she starts to sing that song, especially in the wake of their fight… something grips her. She feels this pull, this swell of romantic energy like she’s in the midst of a goddamn fairytale, and then she just…

Well, does she have any choice in the matter, really?

(He’s the acapella boy and she’s the acapella girl. This is their story.)

From Chapter 6:

She tries to say everything in that kiss that she’s never had the courage to say. I’ve missed you and I love you and I’m willing to try and I’m sorry and I don’t deserve you and Please just wait for me a little longer.

From Chapter 7:

The summer heat is oppressive in North Carolina. Thick air that feels like soup; slogging days of unendurable murky, foggy, wet waves. When it isn’t raining, the sun beats down against the tops of heads and the backs of necks, cooking cars and superheating pavement, scorching the flesh of bare feet that slap against the ground. The smell of freshly mown grass, new mulch, and — further towards to coast — salt spray permeates everything. Sun screen and bug spray make skin sticky; mosquitos flock from person to person in droves, only driven away by rare and brief breezes off the water. The air feels stagnant and heavy, the days endlessly long.

From Chapter 10:

Beca’s music has always so upbeat, so lively, so full of joy and energy and reckless abandon, all about pounding bass notes and soaring vocals, all about mixing together as many songs as possible until the artistry verges just on the hint of chaos.

From Chapter 11:

She bared herself to the entire world. She exposed every bit of her dirty laundry to millions and millions of people for them to look at, pick through, and analyze. She did the one thing she hates most in the world to prove to Chloe that she can, that she wants to, that she can be a new person, that she’s changed, that secrets and lies are all things in her past, and her future is an open book.

Of course. It’s for her. It’s always been for her.

From Chapter 12:

They’ve been together for a year, Chloe’s been living in LA for eight months, and for the past two months or so she’s taken up a near-permanent residence in Beca’s home. She already owns half of the shoe space, half of the space in the bathroom cabinet, and half of the drawers in Beca’s dresser. Her keys have a permanent spot by the door, her soy milk a permanent spot in Beca’s fridge. Her work schedule is stuck on the wall next to Beca’s calendar. Beca’s Netflix queue is full of Chloe’s favorite shows, Chloe’s favorite movies. All but Chloe’s least-favorite outfits have migrated to Beca’s closet, and all of the books she’s currently reading have found a place on Beca’s bedside table.

5: What part was hardest to write?

The hardest part to write were the years where Beca and Chloe didn’t talk. There were whole chapters that just dealt with Chloe and her depression, or Chloe and her inner monologue, or Chloe and her new life in Denver, or Chloe and her love life sans Beca. And those chapters were hard to write. I was really worried they would be boring, or that they would turn off readers, or that people wouldn’t respond well to Chloe dating other people, or that people wouldn’t like the inclusion of original characters, or that people would get annoyed with how they dragged on, or that people would object to the distinct lack of Beca for so much of the story.

But I really felt those chapters were necessary, because I really felt that Chloe had to learn for herself and grow and get better on her own before she and Beca could reconcile. I believed that, in order for Beca and Chloe to truly be together in a healthy way, they had to become healthy on their own. They couldn’t just be together because they fell together, but because they chose to be together. I wanted them to fight for each other, to realize that they weren’t using each other as an emotional crutch or a way to avoid dealing with the problems in their lives, but to realize that they actually helped each other, that each made the other stronger. So despite the fact that those chapters were really hard to write, I’m really glad that I did write them.

7: Where did the title come from?

This may be embarrassing to admit, but I actually have an entire document just of fic titles/small little ideas/summaries/exchanges of dialogue. So the title Perdition had been sitting around in my mind for a while, way before I even got the idea for the story. I was just waiting for the perfect fic to use it on. (I’m kinda obsessed with pretentious titles, if you guys haven’t noticed.)

As I explained in the summary for the story, “perdition” is a word that comes from Christian theology, and it means: “a state of eternal punishment and damnation into which a sinful and unpenitent person passes after death.” And I liked that; this idea that both Beca and Chloe understood that what they were doing was entirely wrong and unjust and, if you subscribe to that sort of belief system, “sinful”, but that neither of them really cared. They continued on with their affair with (seemingly) unrepentant, reckless abandon. I thought it summed up the themes of the story nicely. The beginning of the story, at least. The set up for the dramatic arc.

9: Were there any alternate versions of this fic?

While I knew how the fic was going to end when I started writing it (generally, at least, I knew that Beca and Chloe were going to end up together, and the Grammys acceptance speech was actually like the 5th scene I wrote), it still went through a lot of different drafts. In an early version of the story, Jesse was the one to walk in on Beca and Chloe mid-sexual encounter, but I ended up really hating what the scene said and how it treated Jesse as a character (and the fact that it took away Beca’s agency by denying her the chance to confess), so I got rid of that quickly.

Originally, Emily played a much smaller role in the story. But I liked her as a naïve sort of foil to Beca + Chloe; I liked her optimism and her almost-hero-worship of the two of them; and I liked being able to build a mentor-mentee relationship between Beca and Emily. So she ended up playing a bigger role in the story than originally intended.

In the original draft of the story, there were much fewer chapters. I think originally I only planned on having 6 (4 years of Beca + Chloe’s affair, 1 year apart, and then the chapter where they get back together), but I’ve never been very good at keeping my writing succinct. It just kept growing and growing and by the end I doubled the chapter count. But it felt right to me. All of the additions felt necessary. In the end, I don’t mind the length, because I told the story I wanted to tell.

Raquel was also a pretty late addition to the fic. I toyed a lot with the idea of having Chloe only go on a few unfulfilling dates with men during her time apart from Beca, because a part of me liked the idea of having Beca be her only female long-term romantic partner. But then it felt like I was trying to erase the bisexuality I had established for Chloe early on, so I wrote her a girlfriend. And then I ended up REALLY liking Raquel, so I gave her more and more to do, and I made their relationship stronger and stronger.

Originally, I wanted Chloe to be dating someone when she started having romantic feelings for Beca again, and then realize that she’d only ever really loved Beca etc. etc. etc., but in the end I didn’t like what that did to the story. It felt too much like the beginning, like Chloe hadn’t grown enough as a character. And besides, that’s just not realistic. Very few people have like… ONE true love. And in the end, I wanted Beca and Chloe to choose to be together, like I said. I wanted to have the possibility for other partners, the possibility for happiness elsewhere, and then have them decide to be together anyway. Because they wanted to, because that’s what felt right. So I felt like it was really important to build up their friendship again from the ground up. They couldn’t just leap into romance again after so long and after everything they went through. They needed a strong foundation first. And to have Beca see Chloe happy in a relationship, happy without her… I thought it was important for them to both know that it was possible.

11: What do you like best about this fic?

There are a LOT of things I like about this fic. I like its perspective, I like what it says. I like that it’s almost entirely from Chloe’s POV. I like that it’s a character study more than anything (which is something I’d never previously done). I like that it’s really long (and that I ACTUALLY FINISHED IT which didn’t seem likely for a while). I like that it takes its time, that it really builds to a natural conclusion, that it doesn’t feel rushed or hurried, that there’s a payoff that feels earned. I like all of that stuff.

But what I like most is the impact it’s had. I have gotten such extraordinary feedback from this story, things you guys wouldn’t believe. Not just comments and asks, but individual messages from people who have reached out to me and told me what reading Perdition meant to them. And that’s… I never expected that. It was just supposed to be a sexy little romp, something for me to work out my own feelings and practice writing some smut, and then it turned into this… behemoth of a story that SO many people read and responded to. And I never really anticipated that. But I’m SO glad that I wrote it. And I’m so glad so many of you liked it.

13: What music did you listen to, if any, to get in the mood for writing this story? Or if you didn’t listen to anything, what do you think readers should listen to to accompany us while reading?

People have asked me this question a lot! And I definitely did have a Perdition playlist or two going while I was writing it. It’s funny to look back on that music now, because it’s from like over a year ago and I don’t listen to those playlists often anymore, but I’ll link them below if people are interested:

https://morningsound15.tumblr.com/tagged/perdition-playlist

(tagged/perdition-playlist)

15: What did you learn from writing this fic?

What a question. And a hard one to answer. I think anytime with writing, you end up learning a lot. About yourself, about your characters, about your own personal style. I do believe that writing this story really made my overall writing stronger. The fact that I was able to finish it and give people the ending they wanted was also huge for me, since most of my other really long stories are still unfinished.

I’m not 100% sure what I learned from writing this. I think I’m still learning. Every time I go back and reread it (and I did go back and reread most of it to answer these questions) I feel like I draw something new from the story. And every time I answer questions about it I feel like I understand my writing in ways I never have before.

#anonymous #asks #perdition #questions #long post

7 notes · View notes

dem-fics-tho · 6 years

Text

Not So Secret (Part 2)

Pt. 1

Summary: You try to gather proof that Peter is Spiderman, with Ned helping unknowingly. You questions lead him to a different realization though, and you go to bed worrying about your dad.

Word Count: 2048

Pairing(s): Eventually Peter Parker X Reader

Warnings: None

A/N: Listen guys, I’m really sorry that this took me forever to actually give you. I was dealing with writer’s block for awhile, then kinda of went through a three week period of being really really depressed. And then I couldn’t decide how I actually wanted this chapter to go XD So I apologize for taking so long. I’ll try to get the next part up more quickly. Maybe next week when my winter break starts :) Reblog it if you like it! ^.^

It was Thursday now and you were almost at your wit's end. There was no solid proof that Peter could possibly be Spiderman. You thought that by watching him throughout the week, it would become obvious to you that he was the web-slinging superhero. Nothing akin to that had occurred though. In fact, it had been nearly the opposite.

You’d known Peter a little bit freshman year and he had been a skinny and scrawny kid. He had gotten taller since then and had grown out some, but that could just be attributed to a growth spurt over the summer. Everyone went through those over the course of their high school career. Peter had also been clumsy last year, and on Monday you didn’t think he was as clumsy. People don’t just lose that kind of trait. After all, you’d been tripping over your own feet for years and no amount of balance helped. Spiderman wouldn’t be clumsy, not with superpowers and super abilities. So you were leaning towards the fact that his superpowers had erased his clumsiness… right up until he walked into a locker door that had been left open. Peter was still just as clumsy.

Figuring that Ned would know (Peter and he were practically brothers) you decided to ask him some questions in your English class. Your teacher was sick for the day and you had a sub, one who had a reputation among the students for giving them a study hall and not caring what they did during those forty-seven minutes. You made sure to get to your class early enough to sit next to the seat that Ned always occupied. It worked out well since the next person who came in took your usual seat, so now you had an excuse as to why you were there. When Ned finally came in, he raised an eyebrow at your changed seat but you merely gestured to your usual seat and shrugged.

After the substitute had taken attendance, you closed your reading book and turned to your desk partner for the day. Ned was playing some sort of game on his phone but when he realized that you were watching him, he paused it and looked up at you questioningly. You were suddenly nervous, unsure of how to start the conversation.

“The decathlon is tomorrow, right?” you said eventually, hoping you didn’t sound nervous. Ned’s eyes immediately sparked with excitement and he shut off his phone.

“Yeah! It is. I’m super nervous. I didn’t do it last year so it’s my first time and I don’t know what to expect. Peter said doesn’t feel super competitive since the whole thing isn’t, like, first to respond gets the point. He said that the hardest part is the written part since it’s timed and you never really know what they’re gonna put on the test. I wish Peter was going, I’d feel a lit let nervous if he was.”

You tilted your head, feigning surprise at his words. “Peter’s not going?” you questioned. “But he went last year, didn’t he? They almost won too. Why wouldn’t he go this year? Is he too busy or something?”

You could almost see the gears turning in Ned’s head. He was never a very good secret keeper, barely able to keep anything quiet for long. Seeing emotions flicker across his face only proved your assumption that he knew Peter’s spider secret.

It was a few moments before the boy actually responded, avoiding your eyes as he did so. “Um, yeah, he’s pretty busy. You know, the Stark internship and stuff. Super busy. Mr. Stark has him work, um, weird hours and stuff so he doesn’t want to miss anything important this weekend.” Ned glanced up at you and you could in his eyes that it was a lie. Regardless, you decided to play into the story.

“Oh, that’s too bad. Well, it’s really cool that he gets the opportunity. I’ve heard that Mr. Stark doesn’t usually take on interns that are so young. Do you know why he decided to take on Peter?” you asked, trying to see how much of a story Peter had come up with. You couldn’t possibly be the only one to question this. Ned looked relieved at the question and didn’t hesitate a moment before answering.

“Oh, Peter signed up for this grant thing called the September Foundation. Mr. Stark came up with it and he uses it to help fund students and stuff who show promise at doing cool stuff. Like Peter, he’s really good with electronics. He can fix a lot of stuff, build really cool contraptions. Like he’s built these really cool we-” Ned suddenly clapped his hands over his mouth to silence his words. His eyes were wide and if you had to bet money on it, you would say that he had been about to say “web shooters.” It’s what Spiderman was most famous for, other than his witty comments stuff. You hid your smile well and pretended to ignore the comment as he continued.

“He’s… he’s just good with his hands,” Ned said weakly. Realizing how his words might come across, he scrambled to fix it. “I mean! He’s good at building things! He can fix stuff!” At the boy’s red face and nervous eyes, you couldn’t help but laugh.

Stifling your giggle after a moment, you said, “I know what you meant Ned.” He looked relieved and made a move to grab his phone again. You turned towards your own things, signaling the end of the conversation. You’d gotten the info you wanted, for the most part, and Ned probably wanted a breather. He’d simultaneously embarrassed himself and almost revealed his best friends secret. Anyone would want to take a break from that. Glancing over at him, you noticed that he wasn’t in a game, but instead texting someone. Probably Peter. You didn’t want to be caught spying and you glanced away, but not before noticing the text he’d just sent:

Guy in the Chair - Y/N’s askin questions bout u

The rest of the class went by in relative silence. You played some music on your phone as you read, glancing over at Ned every once in awhile to find him either texting Peter or playing a game. When the bell rung you packed your things and turned to tell Ned that you’d see him later, out of politeness of course. However, he was already out of his seat and you barely caught a glimpse of him leaving the room before he disappeared into the crowd. Sighing, you stood up and began the trek to your locker.

Your locker was only a spots away from Peter’s and when you reached it, you could see him putting books and notebooks inside, pulling out what he needed. Your eyes widened slightly. This was the closest you’d been since Saturday, other than the classes that the two of you shared but those didn’t exactly count. Feeling heat rise to your cheeks, you kept your head down and made it to your locker. Once you’d opened it, you tried to move quickly. Peter may not have fully noticed you on Friday night but who's to say he wouldn’t suddenly remember seeing you and try to strike up a conversation? You suddenly froze when you heard Ned approach and start talking excitedly.

“Dude! I think Y/N has a crush on you!”

Peter quickly shushed him, probably gesturing behind them to tell his eager friend that your locker was close by. But your cheeks had already heated up again for a different reason than earlier. Straining your ears, you tried to overhear what was being said but all you could hear was shushed whispering, a locker slamming, and footsteps heading away. You closed your own locker and stared at the boys’ retreating backs. Why would Ned have reached that conclusion? You hadn’t really given any clue that you had a crush on him… right?

Shaking your head, you pushed the thoughts away and turned to head in the opposite direction. You had a class to get to and Mr. Clemen hated tardy students.

-----

One thing you disliked about living a little further from school: you had to walk. The bus didn’t come to your neighborhood and since your dad was always gone, you didn’t have anyone to give you a ride. Liz had offered a few times but you didn’t want her to go out of her way to do anything for you. Besides, since homecoming was right around the corner, she had to stay after school nearly every day to ensure that preparations were going smoothly and that everything would be ready on time. You didn’t mind waiting of course, but you’d rather get home quickly. A taxi or bus would’ve been a good option but they were too expensive to take advantage of every day. However, walking was nice and relaxing. It gave you some alone time without actually feeling alone. It was only twenty minutes anyway, so it didn’t take too long.

You steps sounded soft on the pavement as you strode home, scrolling through your phone as you waited for lights to turn red so you could walk across the road. Your Tumblr feed was dry and nothing new was coming up. Not feeling like looking anything new up, you switched over to your texting app. Nothing new from friends. There was a new text from your dad though.

Pausing in your walk, you hesitated. You didn’t want to read the text if it was him telling you that he couldn’t make tomorrow’s meeting. You’d been ignoring the topic all week, trying to distract your mind with other matters, but it had only partially worked. The work in Sokovia was going slowly and you wouldn’t be totally surprised if it kept your dad for longer than either of you had anticipated. With a sigh, you turned the phone off and slid it into your pocket. You would worry about it later. You had homework to get to and a dog to cuddle with.

You walked the rest of the way home quickly, eager to be done with your studies and go to the park with Puddles. You’d made a habit of visiting regularly, even though you knew that the chances of seeing Peter or Spiderman there again were very slim. It was a small park anyways and didn’t have kids playing there every day. Maybe you’d do your homework there...

-----

It was almost ten o’clock now. You’d spent the last two hours at the park, shifting from scrolling blankly through your phone and playing with Puddles. She was asleep next to you on your bed, snoring softly. You smiled fondly and rubbed her soft ear, causing the creature to snort and roll over, almost rolling off the bed. You’d eaten a dinner of cold pizza (your favorite) and had watched tv for a little bit but quickly grew bored. There wasn’t anything new on the Spiderman website you’d found earlier that week. Going to bed would be better for you.

Your phone screen lit up just as you were about to climb out of bed to turn the lights off. The notification said that you’d received another text from your dad and you remembered that you hadn’t bothered to check what he’d sent earlier that day. Sighing, you went and turned the light off anyways, climbing back into your bed and grabbing your phone. You prepared yourself for the worst. Opening the app, you read through the texts, unsure of whether it was a good thing or not.

Sent at 11:48 AM

Dad - Sweetheart could you call me soon? I have some things to tell you

Sent at 3:01 PM

Dad - Want to make sure you call me soon. Please try and do so before Friday night, okay Y/N?

You obviously didn’t have time to call him right now seeing as how you were supposed to be asleep. It could wait until tomorrow… right? You sighed again, turning your phone off as you plugged it in to charge for the night. Hopefully whatever your dad had to talk to you about wouldn’t include something bad. You’d call him during your free hour at school.

Taglist: Simply ask to be added and you will be :) Also, to spread the word about this fic, reblog if you really liked it!

@ aussie-mantle

#peter parker #peter parker x you #peter parker x reader #tom holland #tom holland x you #tom holland x reader #spider-man #spider-man: homecoming #secret #series #marvel #mcu #ned leeds #jacob batalon #research #dem fics tho

123 notes · View notes

letswritesomenovels · 7 years

Text

Writing Workshops: An Introduction

If you want to study creative writing--whether in high school, college, or outside of a typical school setting--you’ll undoubtably find yourself in a workshop.

Writing workshops can vary wildly, but the basic premise is this: one writer shares their work and silently listens as a room full of other writers judge it.

Depending on the instructions the people in that room are given, their experiences with workshopping, and their own writing know-how, workshops can either be be scary, unhelpful, humiliating, and downright depressing, or amazing experiences that fundamentally improve your ability to write.

I’ve been workshopping for ten years-- in high school, undergraduate, and graduate classes, and in informal workshops among friends.

Today, I want to share what I’ve learned over those ten years, because I believe that there’s no reason for a workshop to ever be a bad experience.

This is a bit long, so under the Read More you’ll find:

How to Workshop Someone Else’s Story

Reading a piece for workshop

Discussing a piece in workshop

How to Deal with Other People Workshopping Your Writing

An Example of a Not-So-Helpful Critique

An Example of a Helpful Critique

What to Do If You Find Yourself in a Hostile Workshopping Environment

How to Workshop Someone Else’s Story

Reading A Piece for Workshop

When reading a story for workshop, the first thing you should do is look for the story the author is attempting to tell. This is extremely important. That story may or may not be the same as what you would like the piece to be, but convincing the author to write the story you want is not the task at hand.

While reading, pay attention to your personal reaction to the story. What paragraphs are you skimming? Where are you bored? Where is your interest piqued? Where are you confused? What do you find funny/sad/anger inspiring?

Once you’ve identified your feelings, look for the writing elements that are causing them. These are the things you should be pointing out to the author.

Characterization:

What makes the characters feel real or relatable? Where is characterization inconsistent? What is interesting about the character? Can you identify what about the character is driving the plot?

Plot and pacing

Do you have any trouble following the story? Do the events occur in such a way where there is a defined beginning, middle, and end? Does anything feel like it’s happening too quickly/slowly? Are you ‘just one more chapter’-ing your way through this work? Do the events build to a satisfying conclusion?

Setting

Does this place feel real to you? Does the setting add anything to the story? Inform the characters/plot in any way?

Description

Do the sentences flow? Do they invite you into the scene? Do they feel relevant? What do they reveal? Is the author choosing the right words? Are there words they’re overusing? Are they writing in passive voice? Does the writing tell where it should show?

Dialog

Are the characters’ voices distinct? Do you always know who is speaking? Do the characters feel like they’re speaking to each other? Or like they’re explaining things to the reader? Does the conversation feel like it has a natural rhythm? Is it too cluttered with unnecessary dialog tags/actions?

If you don’t know how to tell whether the author is using the correct amount of dialog tags, or what ‘passive voice’ is exactly, the simplest way to usefully critique a piece is to look for the places where an author is obviously trying to do something and let them know whether or not they’ve succeeded at that thing. When they add a comedic line--do you find it funny? When they describe a character’s looks--can you see that person clearly in your mind? When they reveal a shocking piece of information--are you shocked?

Discussing A Piece In Workshop

Don’t frame your critique around what’s bad and what’s good or what you like and what you don’t like, but around what works and what doesn’t work. This will also help to change your mindset while reading the piece. It doesn’t matter if you like it. It matters whether or not the writing is doing what the author wants it to be doing.

When discussing what works, explain why that thing works. If you like a piece of dialog, take the time to figure out what exactly you like about it: is it funny? Does it provide some smart foreshadowing? Is it inspiring? Terrifying? Let the author know what you think.

When discussing what doesn’t work, point out exactly what aspect of that thing is not working, and if you can, suggest something the author could do to fix that element.

When you suggest fixes to a story element that’s not working, it’s better to give the author advice that focuses on what the fix needs to be doing, rather than exactly what the fix should be. Tell them the poster needs to be affixed to the wall, not whether they should use tape, glue, or nails, if that makes any sense.

Try to balance the time you spend discussing things that work and the things that don’t, even if the things that don’t work are the plot and characters, and the things that do work are the occasional sentence. You’ll probably spend more time talking about the things that need work than the things that don’t no matter what, but that ratio should be closer to 60:40 than 90:10.

If you’re not sure whether the advice you’re giving is good, if you aren’t sure whether something is working or not--bring it up anyway and ask the rest of the class what they think about it.

If you don’t agree with something someone else is saying, but don’t want to disagree because that person probably knows more about it than you--say what you want anyway. The writer can only benefit from the additional view.

And remember, it will be your turn eventually, and the way you discuss other students’ writing will set a precedent for how they’ll discuss your writing. If you develop a reputation for being especially harsh to other people’s writing, they’ll probably be equally harsh to you. Likewise with gentleness, kindness, and praise.

How to Deal with Other People Workshopping Your Story

In nearly all workshops, you won’t be allowed to speak while people are discussing your work. Don’t break this rule. This is the time for readers to tell you what your words say to them, for your work to speak for itself. This is not the time for you to tell other people how to read your words. If someone is complaining that you didn’t say X, but you did say it on page 9 and they just didn’t see it--let someone else correct them, let it go, or maybe X needs to be clearer in the text.

Never write for your workshop group. There’s no guarantee your tastes will align with the rest of the class. You may find yourself in a workshop where no one reads your preferred genre. That’s okay. It’s not their job to love your writing, and it’s not your job to provide them with something to love, but it is your job to write what you love.

Know that suggestions are not mandates. Take in the feedback that you think would help your story, and reject the feedback that doesn’t fit the vision you have for your story.

Remember that the people in your class are learning as well. They may not realize how critical they’re being or how hurtful their words are. They may even be outright wrong on occasion. Don’t take it personally.

If you can’t handle looking your classmates in the eye--or if you feel yourself becoming overwhelmed--it’s okay to pull-out a notebook, pretend to take notes, and doodle. Still listen, but let the doodles distract you enough to keep your composure.

An Example of a Not-Very-Helpful Critique*

Overall, I liked this piece. I thought there were a lot of good things in it. The characters were cool and the plot was really interesting. However, I didn’t like the setting. It didn’t feel like a real place to me. I think you need to do some work on it to make it better. Maybe you should change the setting entirely. I think the story would be more fun if it was set in a small town, rather than in a big city. Also, I thought there were some places where the dialog was bad. It was clunky and didn’t sound very natural. I’ve put marks next to the lines that you need to change. There are also a couple of cliches, but you can probably get away with those, because this is SFF and you don’t really have to worry about avoiding things like cliches in that sort of genre. But overall, yeah, I thought this was okay.

*which is still better than many critiques you’ll hear in workshops

An Example of a More Helpful Critique.

Overall, I thought there were a lot of things that worked in this piece. The characterization stands out particularly. The protagonist’s frustration when the man keeps interrupting her felt very relatable to me, and I thought the way she responded by turning into a fire-breathing dragon and roasting him alive was very telling about the emotional turmoil it caused her. Her anger was evident on the page, and you never even had to say outright that she was angry, which I thought was clever.

Also, I thought the foreshadowing in the piece was executed well. The scale earrings, her hoard of silver spoons, and the way she didn’t need a match to light her cigarette... I didn’t realize she was a dragon, but I knew something was up, and that kept me turning the page.

However, I thought there were a few things that could use some work.

Largely, I think the dialog works well. The protagonist’s voice is distinctive and believable for her age. However, there are a couple of pieces of dialog that don’t sound very natural. I think maybe it’s because you aren’t using contractions in places where most people would use them? For instance, on the second page, she says, “there is not another way to go about it,” but “there isn’t another way” would sound less clunky.

I’ve also flagged up a cliche at the end. I know that knights in shining armour riding up on white horses have traditionally been the good guys in fantasy novels, but the way I read it, this piece is all about the personal journey of the dragon, so I was confused when the knight riding up and slaying her was framed as something the reader should be happy about. It might be worth considering subverting this trope, or taking a second look at how it fits in with the ideas you’re already exploring in this story.

I’d be curious to hear what other people think about maybe setting this story in a small town, where the protagonist’s sense of isolation would be more exaggerated. If you do keep it in the big city, I think describing it in more detail, telling us more about the protagonist’s apartment building, and her neighborhood in a couple of scenes would help it work as a more realistic setting.

I thought this was a fun fantasy story, that had a unique and fascinating twist on dragon lore. I look forward to seeing the next draft.

If you find yourself trapped in a hostile workshopping environment...

A good workshop environment depends upon an instructor who will facilitate a helpful and healthy discussion. It’s an instructor’s duty to curb students who get carried away describing all of the things they hate about a piece, and to point students toward constructive criticism, to bring up the great elements of a piece that no one else has mentioned.

When workshoppers are less experienced, it won’t be uncommon for someone to struggle to learn the difference between helpful critique and a rant about all the ways a story could’ve been better. People will give sharp, decided opinions.

If you submit your writing to a class, and your classmates’ reaction is overwhelmingly negative in a way that upsets you, or if your classmates are upsetting someone else, talk to your instructor about it. Ask them to remind students about good workshop etiquette. If they’ve never even brought it up, suggest taking a few minutes out of one class to discuss it.

If they refuse to do their job, try to be an example to everyone else. Find small ways to facilitate a more helpful discussion yourself. When you see students bashing another person’s piece, interrupt them with your own comments about what works in the piece, even if it comes down to individual lines you thought were funny. Conspire. Teach people about good workshopping yourself. Share this post with friends in your workshop class. A few well-spoken critiques can change the tone of the entire conversation.

#writing #workshop #workshopping #creative writing #studying creative writing #mine #writing tip #writing tips #novel writing tips #creative writing tips #writing advice #novel writing advice

721 notes · View notes

all-good-things-dot-dot-dot · 4 years

Text

All Good Things… The Good With the Bad.

All Good Things… The Good With the Bad. #Blog #Bloggerstribe #AllGoodThings… 24th June 2020 Hello, Chaps and Chapettes,

(Source: https://www.keengamer.com/articles/guides/list-of-common-fallout-4-pc-errors-and-how-to-fix-them/ ) It might have seemed like I stopped for a little bit there, huh? In actual fact, I have still been writing, but more or less in the background rather than doing a full-on post like this. Does that mean I’ve been “neglecting my duties” or “forgetting the challenge” I set myself to write for thirty minutes a day? Well, sort of. I cannot lie. Let’s see if we can analyze what happened here and correct the error, shall we? The main hiccup was actually on Friday where I did not write anything at all. I did end up writing that blog on Saturday and followed it up with the actual Saturday blog which I wrote and posted on Sunday, but by then I was already going back on several guidelines that I’d set myself. The first was to ensure that I wrote thirty minutes a day, this was missed on Friday, and the second was to have a break on Sunday.

I’ll come back to Friday in a bit and how I’ll resolve that in the future but I also want to talk about why Monday and Tuesday also didn’t happen. Monday was an oddly exhausting day. The heat has been creeping up this week, today being the hottest so far, but Monday was still cool. I had to take a nap after work and then when I did sit down to write, what I wanted to write was not one of these. Instead, I wanted to work on “Scoundrels”, a story about colorful ponies living in apocalyptic times. They swear, take drugs, shoot guns, it’s fun to write. The reason I wanted to write that, was because on Tuesday I attended an online workshop by a fellow writer who goes by the codename “Somber”. I know there’s non-bronies who read this on my Tumblr so, to summarise, they wrote a particularly famous FanFiction called “Fallout Equestria; Project Horizons”, millions of peeps have read it. It’s also a spin-off from an equally successful story called “Fallout: Equestria” (written by another fanfiction writer, KKat). Somber has a background teaching English so a class on Creative Writing was practically extra studies for my university course!

(Art by me, see https://derpibooru.org/images/2200843 )

The workshop was brilliant. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to workshop my story as we ran out of time but I didn’t feel too down about this. I made friends with a few other fellow writers and so could happily learn and share ideas with them. This ran on quite late and by the time it had ended, the clock was telling me I wouldn’t wake up for work if I didn’t attempt to sleep. That, neatly, leads me to today. As you can see, although I’ve had a busy day of work, walking to and from the shops and watching “Game Night” with my brother, I still managed to find the time to write this. That’s because tonight I had the time. That’s important. Friday, the time wasn’t there. I had to be there for a friend who was in need and since my chat, I have it on good authority that their life is looking up. Sunday was father’s day and I wanted to see both dad and stepdad, which I accomplished. Both men had a great day and felt loved, which was another mission accomplished. Sunday night was blitzed by a migraine and it took two paracetamol two hours to put those fires in my brain out. Monday, as said, was a very tiring day. But I also spent time writing something, even if it wasn’t this. So there was still something completed by the close of the day. Tuesday, there was work, I had my mother pop over for something, I had to cook dinner, and despite all of this still managed to make Somber’s workshop and find writing allies. Do you see where I’m going with this? Basically, just because you don’t get done what you wanted to do, do not look at it as a wasted day. Even a rest day is a success, so long as it is used to let you prepare for some harder work ahead. You are not failing if you didn’t hit that word count, or forgot to do something you wanted to do, or missed that walk to slim down the spare tractor tyre your gut has become. Even little accomplishments are still a win in the grand scheme of things and believe me they make all the difference. And sometimes, if someone you know, care about, or love is in need of you, then you should down tools to help them. Let me reiterate that it should be somebody you care about or at least someone who will return the favor along the line. There are people, even family, who can be a drain on your time, resources, and energy. I learned that the hard way last week (see my blog about bullies). Follow your head in these instances, especially if it is aligned with your heart. Most of all, I want you to take this away with you. Did you wake up today? Do you know how many didn’t get out of bed? Pulled a sickie? Or gave up? You didn’t so in that sense you’re already winning. Now go treat yourself to some cake, champ, you earned it. Stay safe, stay happy. All good things, Love, Scaramouche. X Oh, eerrrr, still here? Okay, let me square with you. Thirty mins just ran out but I wanted to include this; I am writing a spin-off of that “Fallout: Equestria,” series too, as I mentioned, called “Scoundrels”. I did have a lot of the story already up in my FIMFiction library, but I have unpublished it. Here are my reasons; I didn’t like how confusing it was. It felt like it started in the middle of a story. I had made choices as a writer that took the story in some strange directions. I made the plot too complicated. I made some of the good characters unlikeable. I made it too long while not much/ too much happened. So, I am holding onto what I wrote. I want to rewrite it, so that story that you may or may not have read does still exist and isn’t a waste of time, it just needs surgery. When it’s ready, you’ll be able to see it again. Until then, here’s a sneak peek at “Scoundrels”, the ponies of the apocalypse story I will be writing, have edited and polished before I publish it as fanfiction. Enjoy!

(Artist: Brainiac - see https://derpibooru.org/profiles/Brainiac ) ~ Scoundrels Written by Scaramouche “War,” a voice, masculine and gravelly, haunted my hangover. “War never changes.” It wasn’t much, but it was enough to stir me from where I’d attempted to make my early grave. My snout had the telltale feeling you got when you accidentally snorted water while submerged in a pool... Or hit too much Dash. I pushed my hooves out around me before my eyes were able to open and felt tiny canisters rattle away from me wherever I moved. My ribs hurt, telling me I hadn’t found a nice or even barely comfortable place to flop. The information fed back to me from all my senses came to the conclusion that I’d bucked up again. Daring to wake, I cracked my eyes open for as long as I could muster and fluttered the lids ‘til I could make out the shapes of a flickering square of light in the night-time room. Black and white images flashed through the screen of ponies dressed in armor and uniforms, those in the foreground attempting an escape with their wounded while the “best and bravest” continued to fight, to injure, to die. The image changed to Wonderbolts tearing over a coal cloud that once belonged to a shining city. I realized it was Manehattan, the place I’d hailed from. I knew from the shadow of a building topped with a huge pony head choking on the fumes. The Pegasi just seemed like haunting crows over that havoc. After the Manehattan skyline lingered for a few seconds, it switched to a shot taken behind ponies hiding from the invisible foe in a shady tunnel. Their silhouettes were huddled and perpetually expecting the worst of what was to come. Image after image along with the low, tedious voice seemed to mingle with the throbbing headache I’d gained. It reminded me that as gloomy as these images were, they were only the precursor for the apocalyptic times that came after them. I watched, laid lazily on my side among spent stims I’d used to forget the woes of the new world. I couldn’t help thinking that those dumb saps who had lived nearly a hundred years ago never knew how lucky they were. They could still trust the folks either side of them and that was more than could be said for most ponies this side of a century. “... But out of the devastation that arose from the wars, a few were able to reach stables that could house and shield them underground.” The narrator of the scenes kept going with his spiel regardless of whether I was listening or not. I looked about, but it quickly became apparent to me that the voice was just that. A recording from a stallion no doubts long gone now. There was nopony else in the place but for me that I could see. Nonetheless, he persisted. “Your family was part of that group and took refuge in Stable Thirteen.” On-screen, a snap of the giant cog that had once locked up this subterranean vault could be seen. “No, they weren’t, pal,” I grouched, squinting about the area still while battling with some persistently annoying amber locks of mane in my eyes. Something in this place was still trying to live, based on the squealing of a harmed fan spinning in the walls. Thanks to the projection lamp, I could see the tiles that dripped from the ceilings as age and erosion pulled them down. Wires knotted into nooses hung out from the ceiling gaps. Across dirty, rusted floors, the corpses of chairs lay on their sides and backs, stricken by the last unknown executions that had taken place here. Near me and my graveyard of used drug containers, a card crate lay on its side in a beaten state. “You are the first generation born in this stable to have not known the-the-the--” Apparently, I still wasn’t to know what “the” was. Above me, the box that had created this depressing light and sound show for me fizzed, crackled, sparked, then died. All light failed and draped a veil casually over me and space. Yet, this wasn’t as terrifying to me as might have been to somepony else. I sighed, relaxed, and let the gentle black patch encourage my head to heal. The festering stable was dead, the complaining sounds of the vents now a memory, and it was good. It was calming. I could maybe forget everything and fall back into a graceful slumber with it. After all, a ship in the harbor is a ship that’s safe... Of course, fate intervened. “Breeze! Breeze, where are you?” The voice was distant, but it was growing closer. “Gypsy Breeze, I swear on the spirit of Celestia, if you don’t get your ass into gear…” Fresh, battery-powered light began to dawn around the edges of the forever-open doorway into the corridors, confirming that the calling, living voice wasn’t far from finding me. “Buck,” I grunted to myself and pushed back the pain sloshing side to side in my cranium. I had to get myself up before they found me and the evidence littered around me. My legs complained but lifted me, allowing me to stand and let my brain cease paddling about in my skull. I swung a hoof out, brought it down, then my face immediately met the oxidized floor once more as a giggling Dash inhaler tripped me and twirled away. “Breeze?” They’d heard my tumble. “Buck,” I hissed painfully and scrambled back up, firing up a spell. I knew the caller in the halls would see the light but hoped I’d be quick enough. Despite the magic throbbing behind my junked-out eyes, I gathered all the emptied Dash I could see in the enchanted light. Catching as many as I could levitate, I shoved them into the deteriorated box, managing to slip the last of them away when a blinding orb swung through the door. I covered my bleary eyes and snarled out at a feeling only a vampire pony in the baking sun would understand. “Gypsy!” The dazzling sprite squeaked. “That’s my name— Buck, Hayfever, could you drop the light of that thing? My bucking eyes are about to explode…” mercifully, the beam lowered to ground level, allowing me to partially see the mare I knew behind it. Her sunset orange wings were spread in preparation to once more admonish me while the expression on the pegasus remained concerned. “You split from me again, Breeze. Ottawa said this stable is particularly dangerous, we shouldn’t be going off alone when--” “Ottawa was wrong,” I skulked somehow towards the door and waved my hoof back the way she’d come from. “I caught a terminal back up that way and… I dunno, something about the water talisman failing? Either way, the pony meant to fix it shuffled out the main door, and never came back. After that, the rest of the dwellers overthrew the overstallion and let themselves out of their own accord. Probably likely that nopony’s been here since.” If I’d have sounded more sure of myself in that last comment, I might not have seen doubt spread across her freckled, gold-lit face. “No, somepony has been here before us,” she suggested, “I found the mattresses pulled out of their rooms and laid together in the atrium. There was waste and broken gear that could only have come from outside too. Could be scavs, could be raiders, either way, we don’t want to take our chances.” “It could have easily been the Stable Thirteen ponies too,” I countered, “especially if they were going back and forth in and out of here, not wanting to--” I interrupted myself, as a false step kicked something, which ricocheted off of the metal wall and swirled unfortunately into the light of Hayfever’s torch. It only took her a second to realize what it was and I was already cringing guiltily when the light raised back accusingly at me. “Gypsy Breeze, you silly mare,” she scolded as well as any experienced mother could, “Using? Again? I thought you were beating this.” “It’s not mine,” I played the part of a lying teenager as best as I could, “it’s from those raiders you were bitching about--” “Oh, so now we believe in the raiders?” She had another quick examination of the inhaler and sighed, ruffling her wings in irritation as she walked past me, ensuring her hoofsteps echoed her annoyance. “When I agreed to hide your troubles from the rest of Helping Hooves, it was on the promise that you were going to make an effort to quit from them. Not so that you could privately indulge in the stuff.” She collected my saddlebag, discarded on a spineless chair, and was about to toss it to me when she had second thoughts. At my protests, she flipped the flap open first and rifled through up, digging out what she had expected to find almost instantly. Five more full inhalators of Dash were plucked out and tossed into the void of the room before she was comfortable returning my near-empty sack to me. “I’m not doing it to be an ass to you, Gypsy,” she said as I mournfully took the bag and slipped it back on. “As mayor of Helping Hooves I have a duty to look out for everypony and that includes you. But if you’re going to endanger lives this way, I’ll have no choice but…” I waited for what kind of penalty she’d place on me. Yet, all she could do was gaze at me, not mad, just disappointed. I gave a low groan, both out of the pain of coming down and the guilt of letting down a mare who was just looking out for my best interests. “Can we just get out of here?” I pleaded, “the air in here is making me feel sick.” “You sure it’s just the air?” She thrust a hoof forward, directing me on the way to head next. “But you’re right. Let’s just get the spark batteries Ottawa needs and high-tail it out of here…” To be continued...

(Source: https://thegeek.games/2020/03/24/fallout-3-war-war-never-changes-retro-2008/ )

#fallout #blog #writing #challenge #brony #equestria #my little pony #friendship #new vegas

0 notes