#& . › dash games ⤻ you do not know how to fly this plane. .

[wavesoutbeingtossed]

I’m absolutely not a proponent whatsoever of the take that a certain someone kept Taylor locked away for years in London, but I do have to think that one of the added bonuses of her now being back to being based full-time in the US is that she gets to see her extended family more often, especially when she now spends most weekends in the Midwest near them (loooool thanks killatrav)

#this post brought to you by my family dinner tonight for Christmas #and catching up on my dash and seeing Taylor with her cousins at the game tonight #I don’t know how often she got to see them all when she lived in London #(I mean I know she has her own plane she could fly back whenever) #but it’s really sweet that her aunt and cousins have shown up to a couple of kc games already this year #I’m guessing it must be fun to do this on the regular and not just at like major holidays or weddings/funerals #idk it’s the holidays I’m sentimental

[embarrassedanon]

Daddy-in-Law Part 3

The wait is over! The wedding is finally here. After Rob flashed his cheeks at the spa and Jason made an ass of himself at the tailor, it’s clear these guys struggle to keep their big behinds covered, do we think that will be any different on the big day? 

The ceremony was due to start in about an hour and I was held up in the groom’s suite with Jason, his dad Steve, and all the groomsmen. The party included Jason’s brother Marty, and three of his friends from prep school, Walter, Franklin, and Charlie. 

We were all dressed in well-fitting tuxedos and Jason sat by himself reviewing his vows on notecards. “Jason, I think I know why you’re so nervous,” Charlie said slyly. 

“Real master of perception aren’t you Charles?” Jason quipped back. 

“Well beyond the obvious,” Walter chimed in. 

“You’re not dressed in Ely Manner” Franklin added. 

This garnered a big laugh from Steve and Marty. Jason’s former classmates joined in the raucous laughter. Jason blushed. Being the only guy in the room who hadn’t gone to the pretentious Ely Academy, I stood firmly outside this inside joke. 

“I guess it’s not Ely Style but I think the tux looks great,” I made my best attempt to dissipate Jason’s palpable embarrassment. 

A bigger laugh.  

“Oh Rob, you’re a riot,” Jason’s father began, “At Ely, it’s customary to go sans undergarments or how do you refer to it...”

“Commando,” Marty said, finishing his father’s thought. “You go commando for good luck.” 

“That’s Ely Manner,” Charlie, Walter, and Franklin said in unison. 

“Seriously?” I couldn’t believe that all these stuffy rich guys regularly went commando. 

“The tradition has to be over a hundred years old at this point,” Marty added. 

“But most guys rarely do it after graduation,” Jason assured me.

“Speak for yourself, I went fully Ely Manner when I took the bar exam.” 

“Yeah, when I fly private I’m almost always going Ely Manner, you know how nervous I get on those tiny planes.” 

“If I’ve got an important short game with a client you know I’m rolling up sans underwear.” 

Jason was shocked that all his friends had kept up with what he always thought was a silly and slightly embarrassing schoolboy tradition. “Dad, surely you didn’t go Ely Manner after school?” Jason asked

“Not nearly as much as these lads, but I certainly did a handful of times when I was younger. Come to think of it, I think I went commando on my wedding day. Hell, I and all the groomsmen did. No more auspicious start to a marriage than a few Ely men working together to bring you good luck.” 

“Jace, are you really going to let dad out do you like that?” Marty quipped. “A real Ely man would go commando at his wedding with his whole wedding party. It’s the only way.” 

Jason exchanged nervous looks with his groomsmen and his brother. I could tell he was looking for a way out of this. Then his eyes fell on me. “I mean I would of course,” Jason said through nervous laughter, “but it wouldn’t want to make Rob participate in our silly prep school tradition.” 

“Oh it doesn’t sound silly to me at all,” I was really laying it on thick, getting a shot of unbridled joy from seeing Jason have to give in to this plan he clearly didn’t want to go along with. “Taking off your underwear seems like a small price to pay for good luck in your marriage to my daughter.” 

Perhaps that was overkill but I was having fun. Jason shot me a look letting me know that he both knew what I was doing and knew that there was no backing out now. 

“It’s settled then! Gentlemen, it’s time we lose our skivvies.” 

The ceremony was a mere fifteen minutes from starting so the next few minutes were an absolute mad dash to get shiny shoes and tuxedo pants off so underwear could be properly removed. 

Steve hastily removed his shoes and slacks to reveal a tired-looking pair of white Calvin Klein briefs. Can’t beat a classic I guess. I was glad for Steve’s presence so I wasn’t the only guy in the dressing room with a big hairy ass.

As I removed my maroon boxer briefs I noticed Marty shucking a pair of black trunks. Like his brother and father, Marty also had quite a big rump. It was high and tight with almost no jiggle, true buns of steel. 

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Walter, Franklin, and Charlie removing their own underwear. Walter was wearing a pair of black briefs that must have been a size too small, his cheeks hung out the bottom. Franklin seemed to be worried about brief lines as he sported a pair of seamless bikini briefs that hung low exposing his hairy crack. Charlie wore the most outrageous underwear of the group a lime green jockstrap that somehow made his already pert cheeks look even perkier. 

Across the suite, Jason had removed his white briefs and was struggling to get his tuxedo pants back up. They fit him like a second skin, they had proven difficult to put on the first time and were only slightly easier without the briefs in the way. He probably was thankful for the newfound room. 

I’m not sure how but Jason had assembled a motley crew of men of various ages with more junk in the trunk than the average Joe to accompany him down the aisle. The seven of us would surely turn heads with our fourteen immaculately sculpted cheeks. 

As Jason finally tucked his bare ass into his tuxedo pants and checked the mirror to ensure his crack wasn’t exposed he smiled at us and said “alright fellas, I gotta get married.” 

The venue was stunning. My daughter really did have a knack for these sorts of things. There was an impressive turn out too. I had no idea Sarah and Jason knew this many people, there had to be close to two hundred. 

As it came time to exchange the rings, Marty handed Jason the wedding band and it slipped through his fingers completely. The ring fell to the ground with a clang and many of the wedding goers let out gentle laughter. 

Jason was blushing but seemed determined to keep his cool following the slight blunder. He turned away from the audience, bent at the hips to retrieve the ring, and then 

RRRRIIIIIIPPPPP  

Jason’s bespoke tuxedo pants tore right down the rear seam exposing his pert peach to the entire wedding. His ass, the thing that had embarrassed him so much as a kid. The part of his body his dad told him to cover up to avoid embarrassment had made an appearance on his most important day. His father, his schoolmates, his work associates, his friends, and his family, were all looking at his bare behind. 

You could feel the humiliation reverberate through the room. Your ears rang like you just heard an explosion. You could taste the embarrassment. Every man in the room felt their heart race and their palms go sweaty as they put themselves in Jason’s shoes. Every guy was as glad it wasn’t them as they were mortified on Jason’s behalf. 

Walter, Franklin, Charlie, and Marty looked completely gobsmacked. Sure they had seen Jason’s big butt before but never like this. 

Sarah put all new meaning to the term blushing bride as she shielded her face in pure embarrassment. Her bridesmaids looked on with a mixture of glee and worry. 

There must have been 50 times as many eyes on Jason’s ass now than at the tailor. Maybe 30 times more eyes than saw me in the spa. I knew I had to help him. 

Without thinking I sprang into action, I lept out of my front row seat and stood in front of the altar, and mooned the entire crowd. I refused to let my son-in-law be the laughing stock of his wedding. If any guy was going to be embarrassed by his big ass it was going to be me. 

My stunt broke the stupor of the crowd and led to some chuckles. 

“Guys come help me out here,” I grunted at the groomsmen. 

Franklin, Walter, and Charlie joined me in line and dropped trou as well. This gave Marty enough time to help his stunned brother out of the room with the audience distracted by us guys. Turns out four big bubble butts are a lot more interesting than one. 

The chuckles grew into a full-on laugh riot with several guys from the audience joining in the fun and too many catcalls to count. All in the booty show lasted a good ten minutes until the groom returned wearing his brother’s trousers while Marty sported the ripped tux pants with his boxer briefs on display.

The rest of the ceremony went off without a hitch and my daughter got what she wished for when this all began. Turns out there’s no better way to bond with your son-in-law than both flashing your ass to a full wedding. 

This was super fun, I’ve never really written a multi-part story like this before. Please let me know if you guys liked this and you have ideas or suggestions for things to include in my next story. 

#text post #phat cake #ripped #full moon #daddy-in-law #my writing #enm

[theresa-of-liechtenstein]

it’s new year somewhere and the night air is cold—what better time to bring shipwright and fairbairn back out?

All of aviation runs on a standard time; by virtue of the island they share having been home to a naval superpower (and Herc, consummate Englishman he is, will definitely not get into an argument with his Scottish first officer in the flightdeck of the aircraft owned by their Scottish airline about anything nearly related) it just so happens that that standard time is also the one they live by, this time of year.

Between them in the dimmed flightdeck, but on Linda’s side of the dash, the current time in UTC blinks out at them: 23:49. It’s the same time flashing out of similar chronometers peppering the sky around them, the one they differentiate from any old number by tacking a Zulu after it in radio communications. Sometimes, talking to another pilot, they might slip a Zulu when asked for the time; it’s a little embarrassing, but Herc remembers doing the same thing to impress girls, back in the day, as if he were flying a fighter jet and not a passenger plane.

They’re silent, right now; they often are, on night flights. It’s not that they run out of things to talk about or games to play. The star-peppered void envelops them, and Linda has never once tired of scanning it, whether for position lights at higher flight levels or for shooting stars.

New Year’s Eve is dying around them. They have their sights fixed on home, thankfully—Linda to the flat that this nearly-past year has brought her, and Herc to the sofa in that flat he’s come to occupy after many a red-eye, now that he’s coming home to an empty flat himself. Flying westward, the new year is quite literally dawning at their heels. This will be Herc’s fourth year at the wee Scottish airline; this will be his third flying with the young woman next to him.

He knows enough about budget airlines, and the sorts of pilots who apply to them, to predict what this next year will bring—actually, if he’s being specific, what this next year will take away. Linda’s a Senior First Officer now, with hours of logbook time under her belt, and Herc has been very careful to let her have as many opportunities to serve as pilot flying as he can give her. He’s just waiting for the day when she’ll turn to him and break the news that this is over, that she’ll be going back up to HQ, that she’ll be taking the command course and moving to the seat he occupies now.

Has she told him any of this yet? Well—no, and that’s the sticking point for Herc. He’s confident she’d never spring something like this on him as a surprise; they’ve been through…a lot. And he would have thought that he meant something to her—but then again, he thought he’d meant something for someone who he couldn’t keep around, the same story, the same theme—

“Herc?”

And maybe the time has come.

“Yes, Linda?” he asks, already steeling himself for impact.

“You started flying, what…late ‘70s, maybe?”

Okay…not really the opener he was expecting. “Well—yes. That should be around the time I started training, but we’d be talking very late seventies. Why?”

“By that time…” Linda pauses, “did you still learn celestial navigation in flight training?”

Herc hums, still a little on-guard; he’s not sure how this connects, if this connects—God, Shipwright, get ahold of yourself, she asked you a question and she’s waiting for you to answer. “My flight instructor was one of the pioneers and flew in the war, so I did learn. He insisted. But when I got to line flying…” Herc shook his head. “None of that. We had our ways…navigators over the sea early on, I remember. VOR over land. Inertial systems, later on, so there was no more need for navigators. But no celestial navigation.”

“Oh.”

“Why do you ask?”

“Dad taught me a long time ago,” Linda replies, and in the dim she looks at Herc, her face thoughtful. “He always said, What are you going to do when you can’t depend on your aids? and this was before GPS was used on planes, too…but I haven’t practiced in a long time, so I’ve kind of lost it.”

“Well—same for me,” Herc sighs, looking out of his window to hide a secretly sickening swoop of relief in his stomach. How silly he had been to doubt Linda. How selfish he is, to be this relieved that she’s not leaving: at least, not yet.

Between them, the time blinks: 23:53.

“I used to have a sextant,” Linda says. “I wonder if I went and looked for it next time I’m at Mum and Dad’s, I could bring it along and we could try getting a fix one time. Like the old days.”

She says that so casually, as if she were around to see those old days, that Herc can’t help but let out a chuckle at her.

“What?” Linda demands, voice indignant.

“Oh, it’s nothing. Anyone ever tell you you’ve got a bit of an old soul?”

Now it’s Linda’s turn to laugh. “As it is—aye, so I’ve been told. Guess that’s the product of hanging ‘round Dad’s aero club buddies and Cal my whole life.”

And then they’re silent again, punctuated only by a call from the airspace they’re currently occupying asking for an update, and a member of the cabin crew delivering two steaming cups of hot drinks they’d asked for earlier. Different kinds, just in case: tea for Linda, coffee for Herc.

“Happy new year,” she says with a smile, before stepping back out and locking the door.

23:57.

“Could you pick out a star?” Linda wonders aloud. “If you were asked?”

“For navigation purposes, no.” Herc folds out his tray table and sets his drink on top, careful not to position the cup close to any equipment. “For fun? Yeah.” He squints outside. “Maybe Venus is out there.”

“But that’s not a star,” Linda says, with the patience of a nursery school teacher. “That’s a planet.”

“No, no—sorry. I was just thinking of an opera. There’s an aria where Wolfram—that’s the character’s name—sings to Venus—” Even in the half-light of a barely-illuminated flightdeck, Linda looks skeptical; Herc resists the urge to chuckle at her again. “Here, I think I can…” He reaches up onto the control panel, atop which he’s stashed a couple of checklists; propping it up as a poor excuse for a harp, he mimes a strum, clears his throat, and starts, “O du, mein holder Abendstern… mmmm mmmm mm mmmmmmm mmm mmm mmm mmm…”

He doesn’t actually know the words and trails off into German gibberish, much to Linda’s general embarrassment. “Herc!”

“What?” he grins back, cutting himself off at the end of the line, too amused at her consternation. “It’s fitting; it’s night, if we can’t find Venus we can just find any old star…”

“They could hear that in main cabin, Herc.”

“People just don’t appreciate getting serenaded like they used to,” Herc put away the checklists with an air of mock-sorrow.

“You’re impossible,” Linda scoffs, but he can clearly hear the affection running beneath her tone, and he smiles.

“My pleasure,” he says, and glances at the chronometer. “Ooh, Linda, look at the time—”

23:59, then after a few seconds— 00:00.

“Happy new year, Herc,” Linda says first, softly, and he can hear the smile on her face. On the common frequency, other pilots are busy wishing each other a happy new year in the sky, but—this moment’s theirs, for now. Maybe they’ll make an announcement about it, but—in a moment. Then they’ll toast to each other with their teas and hopefully talk some more…and then, they’ll be home. And then…

That’s later. They’re here now.

“Happy new year, Linda,” Herc replies, reaching across the flightdeck until he finds her arm and squeezes it gently. “Here’s to a good one for both of us.”

He feels her hand come up to grasp his: the clasp of a friend, comforting warmth in a cold sky. “For both of us,” she echoes, and Herc allows himself the selfish wish, the silly hope, that this might not be the year he loses nights like these.

They speed westward, and shed the old year off their wings as contrails from their engines; a wish for companionship fulfilled in the lonely, star-encrusted sky.

#em writes #cabin pressure #shipwright & fairbairn #happy new year! time to sleep ;)

[thatmexisaurusrex]

i need to know about A Prince and His Bodyguard from thw ip game immediately!!!

WIP MEME

Oh my gosh, I'm actually super excited about this, and it's coming soon. Basically, it starts with Prince Sam Wilson sneaking off from his latest personal bodyguard, Walker, in order to explore a nightclub. There he meets one half of the infamous Charmes Siblings drag duo, Hecate "Heca" Charmes - aka Bucky Barnes.

They spend the night together getting to know one another without knowing who the other truly is. Heca even helps Sam evade the man tracking him through the nightclub (Walker).

The next day, Sam has to find a new personal bodyguard and Bucky comes into the palace to get a security guard position after he was fired from his museum job when they found out that he does drag at night. They meet by chance when Bucky gets lost in the palace. Sam decides to interview Bucky for the position of personal bodyguard.

Sam realizes that Bucky Barnes was the Bucky Barnes who was once a world champion gymnast who almost went to the Olympics before a plane crash severely injured Bucky and Bucky lost his arm. Sam recognizes him as the gymnast who had inspired Sam to pursue competing in international championships and eventually go to the Olympics himself before his mother, the Queen, told Sam to retire after that one Olympics.

Sam decides to offer Bucky the position of personal bodyguard and Bucky accepts the position.

It's a Prince/Bodyguard AU as well as a Gymnast AU to some extent (with some Yuri!!! On Ice inspiration), a Drag AU to some extent, idiots in love, fluff with a dash of angst.

Here's a little excerpt of it, though, it still might change a bit before I post it:

“Beautiful, right?”

Sam jumped.

He was beautiful. Dressed in drag. A silver chiffon and gemstone dress made up of a pack of white wolves with icy blue eyes with high heels that looked as if they were made out of ice. They matched the silver belladonna-leaved chaplet atop his tussled hair with small braids that were intertwined with silver snakes made from woven thread and silver mandrake blooms. Negative space lavender eyeshadow seeped into drawn on outlines of wolfsbane dripping down the man’s face. Glossy, metallic silver lips with lavender belladonna flower outlines drawn atop the silver. A glove that looked as if it was made from silver dittany climbing up the man’s one arm.

He looked familiar, but Sam wasn’t quite sure how.

The man smiled at Sam as he pointed to the bookshelf filling up the tall wall before them, where the books created a mural of a woman draped in gold and rubies with falcons resting on her arms.

“I think it’s supposed to be a painting of the first queen of Delacroix, Darlene,” said the man.

Sam nodded, smiling at the mural.

“Darlene the Falcon Queen. It was said that she used to extend her arms and the falcons would grab her and pick her up. Fly her away like that,” said Sam as he giggled, his arms wide open like the mural, “Can you imagine that? Holding your arms out like this and some falcons casually grabbing you and flying off with you like you’re post-lost the ring to the fires of Mount Doom Frodo and Samwise.”

The guy laughed.

“I didn’t know that,” said the man, looking from the mural to Sam with his arms out still, “How do you even know they’re going to drop you off where you want them to drop you? How many falcons would it take to pick up a person?”

“All good questions,” said Sam as he thought about how he walked past the actual portrait that this mural was inspired by way too much, “I ask myself that every day.”

“Historian?” asked the man curiously, leaning on the bookshelf.

Sam shrugged.

“Kind of. A bit of a fossil, in some respect,” said Sam with a sigh, “Sometimes an athlete when I’m allowed. Mostly an explorer when I can manage it.”

“An explorer?” asked the man, “Color me intrigued. What does that mean?”

“I don’t get a lot of opportunities to go out,” Sam said, pretty sure this man could tell that Sam was side-stepping something important, “But when I get the opportunity, I jump on it.”

The man nodded.

 “This one of those opportunities?” asked the man.

“I hope so,” said Sam, “I’d love it to be, especially with someone like you.”

#thank you for the ask samky 🥰 #sambucky fic #sambucky #bodyguard au #royalty au #gymnast au #drag au #idiots in love #tooth rotting fluff #mild angst #prince sam wilson #bodyguard bucky barnes #wip meme #tag game

[charlesandmartine]

Wednesday 24th April 2024

Our hotel was still asleep as we fumbled our way out of unfamiliar locked doors. The cases rumbled noisily past the swimming pool and the security guard mysteriously appeared out of the darkness, grabbed a suitcase and thrust a couple of ham bagels in a carrier bag our way. By way of saying goodbye he operated the big security gate to allow us to drive out into the night. It was still stupid o'clock as we drove the empty streets the 3kms or so to the airport passing a shantie town with yesterday's fires still burning and on to the Avis drop off point. Now pedestrians again we made the short walk into departures. They were relatively pleasant at this time of the morning. The check-in man almost smiled but I think it was wind. I had a conversation with the man at the scanner. Well it was a bit like talking to Sooty; I could see his lips move but I couldn't actually hear anything. Turns out when he virtually whispered in my ear he was enquiring where we were off to and wished us a pleasant journey!! Man in the airport!!! Never come across anyone pleasant before! I squeeked back in 'Sweep' that we from England and on our way to Kasane. He nodded.

We were flying on a small Embraer E195 jet aircraft. A visually impaired lady two rows in front of us had a Labrador guide dog under the seat. Thankfully the man in front didn't need to reach under the seat for his life jacket. He might have got a big lick.

Johannesburg airport was another challenge. Moving from domestic arrivals to international departures was fun. Scanning again the same bags brought through Port Elizabeth certain items were now deemed unacceptable and yet another Sooty whispered that I shouldn't have something in my bag but I had no Idea what the contraband was. He whispered confidentially that on this occasion he would turn a blind eye but don't tell the lady over there. We searched through the bag later a discovered a couple of oranges that the hotel had slipped in. No idea if that's what the fuss was about. Then an official porter kindly showed us how to negotiate the endless corridors. When nicely positioned for correct departures he started muttering about a tip, as did the man in the Gents.

Our flight to Kasane was on an even smaller plane, an Embraer E135/140. If we had to do another flight we'd all be sitting with the pilot!

Happily after having the passports checked by two sets of people we collected our hold luggage (remarkably arrived despite the transfer) and we were met by a very nice lady from the Chobe Game Lodge. We were joined by two ladies from Philadelphia, piling into the back of a Toyota Landcruiser and driven the 40 minute journey to the Game Reserve. We were then shown to our lodge but there's an itinerary here don't you know and we were supposed to have afternoon tea and then present ourselves for the three hour cruise looking for wildlife. No time for everything, so we missed the tea and dashed down to the waiting boats bobbing by the quayside of the Chobe River. Ours is the Botswana bank whilst the opposite bank is Namibia.

The bar was free as were the nibbles and the animals we were able to see. The great thing about water is that sooner or later all animals come down to it. We witnessed bathing elephants, hippos, crocodiles, monkeys, giraffes and an African Fish Eagle along with herons and egrets. A truly superb setting and collection of animals on our first visit, made all the more perfect by a magnificent sunset. A great end to a day where temperatures peaked at 35°C.

#Chobe Game Lodge

[uswntxfootball]

wonderland (kristie mewis x uswnt!reader)

all the memories and suppressed feelings flood back when she gets called up to the national team again.

word count: 2624 ish

rated D for dumb idiots. also F for flustered reader. and A for a little angsty.

——

it was tuesday morning when you had a near death experience.

jordan thinks that you��re being overdramatic but you don’t listen to her anyways.

on your off day of training the team decided to go out to have a nice breakfast together at a cafe.

there was the usual banter, disgusting couple moments (you constantly made gagging noises at them), and general stupidity.

after a bit the conversation dulled a little, but spiked again when jordan said:

“hey doesn’t the uswnt roster drop today?”

oh crap you forgot about that.

“oh crap yes it does.”

you were pretty sure you were going to make it again.

you’ve been very constant with your playing, scoring goals nationally and at the wsl alike.

still you couldn’t help the nerves that crept their way up your skin, and you handed your phone to jordan to have her read the list .

“read the list of midfielders aloud for me would you?”

the forward accepted it without hesitation, this being a usual exchange between the two of you.

jordan scanned the page a few times before smiling:

“i am proud to present the midfielders for the 2020 netherlands camp-“

“oh stop it just get on with it.”

“well i was before you rudely interrupted me-“

“alright whatever well keep going then.”

“julie ertz.”

“ditto.”

“lindsey horan.”

“also a given.”

“rose lavelle.”

“obviously.”

“catarina macario.”

“i’m not surprised.”

“sam mewis.”

“uh huh”

“and yours truly, y/n y/ln.”

the table cheered a little and you blushed, taking a bite of your avocado toast to hide your smile.

“oh and kristie mewis.”

and then you inhaled sharply, choking on your bite of food.

“who?” you managed to get out through a fit of coughing.

your inquiry was met with an array of exclamations.

“do you not know who kristie mewis is?”

“sam mewis’s sister?”

“won the challenge cup with dash?”

“dated rachel daly?”

“how do you not know who she is?!”

“you’re american for god’s sake!”

you ignored them all and instead said to jordan:

“can you hand me the water?”

jordan furrowed her eyebrows and handed you a glass of water as you coughed away.

you shot her a thankful glance before it was broken again by your nonstop coughing.

daan turned and slapped you a few times on the back which helped slightly.

for the rest of the breakfast jordan noticed you were much quieter, resorting to staring off into space instead of filling the silences with bad jokes.

after breakfast she caught up with you.

“alright spill.”

you shot her a look of confusion.

“spill about what?”

“you and kristie.”

“there’s nothing to spill.”

“that’s a lie and you know that.”

“i- hey would you look at the time i gotta go!”

you glanced at your wrist quickly before running off.

jordan shook her head before yelling out:

“you don’t even have a watch on!”

~~

steph watched the two of you and shook her head.

you and kristie were bickering about something across the field, too caught up in your own world to pay attention to the fact that training had ended.

steph and kristie were both boston college grads, and the two had been close friends before signing together.

kristie had taking a particular liking to you, and within the first week of training you found yourself included in everything the they did.

the three of you played for the boston breakers, sharing an apartment, a car, and consequently all your personal spaces as well.

and so it was only fitting that the three of you bickered.

a lot.

you and kristie more than anyone.

“that is the worst show in existence!”

“no it is not the cinematography is fantastic it’s-“

“no the acting is so bad!”

“no it’s not i-“

“you just have bad show choices.”

you gasped in offense.

“take it back.”

kristie grinned and stuck her tongue out at you.

“never.”

“well then you better run.”

kristie’s eyes widened when you lunged at her.

she took off but you, being faster tackled her to the ground.

your fingers dug into her sides and through a fit of laughter she relented.

“okay okay! i take it back! you have good taste in shows!”

you grinned triumphantly and stopped, your hands on both sides of kristie’s head as you looked down at her.

kristie’s cheeks were flushed and her chest heaved slightly as she looked up at you.

you were briefly aware of the pounding in your ears and butterflies in your stomach.

your eyes locked onto hers and unbeknownst to you you were leaning in but kristie was very, very aware of it, and just as she was about to lean in as well, steph’s yell broke the two of you out of your trance.

“hey training is over idiots!”

you shoot up so fast that your vision goes a little bit black.

you stumble a little bit before finding your balance.

“shut up mccaffrey you almost gave me a heart attack.”

you look down to see kristie still on the ground before you stick a hand out to help her up.

“what were the two of you even fighting about?”

you gave kristie a pointed look before saying:

“this idiot said my show choice was bad.”

steph thought about it for a minute.

“well i mean she isn’t wrong.”

kristie lets out an exclamation after hearing that.

“see?! i told you!”

“hey! you took it back!”

“doesn’t mean it isn’t true!”

“i’m being bullied.”

“oh shut up y/n.”

~~

adjusting your mask and sunglasses, you made your way out of the plane with a few of your teammates.

you had just landed in the netherlands, and coming from england you had a shorter flight compared to most of the team, who would be landing in an hour or so.

you were brimming with excitement at meeting up with your us teammates, as you hadn’t seen them since the beginning of the pandemic.

even then you didn’t get to see them often as you played in the wsl.

you had signed with arsenal in 2017, after the league folded and the boston breakers disbanded, as you were done with the american soccer system.

england had welcomed you with open arms, and you soon made a home there, flying back every so often for national team camps and games.

so when the pandemic hit and a handful of your teammates signed for international clubs, you were ecstatic.

even if they signed for opposing teams.

at least none of them signed for chelsea.

christen gave you a little tap when she saw your suitcases, and you gave her a thankful look before going to grab them.

when everyone was settled, you made your way to the bus and set off on your way to the hotel.

“sam how excited are you that kristie is coming?”

your head snapped up at the mention of the midfielder’s name, an action sam noticed but didn’t comment on.

“i’m so happy! she’s happy too on being called back and can’t wait to see her old teammates again!”

your cheeks flushed a little when sam’s eyes met yours at the end of her statement, and you suddenly found the ground very interesting.

it was a little later when you arrived at the hotel and rose kicked your foot that you looked up.

making your way into the hotel was an interesting experience.

on one hand you were beyond excited that you were back with the national team, yet on the other hand the prospect of seeing kristie made you want to throw up a little bit.

it’s not that you didn’t want to see her.

you were nervous because you liked? like? her.

of course this you realized way after you had left the us.

or rather, just as you were about to leave.

~~

you stood, heart racing as you stood in front of kristie’s door.

your hand hovered above it for a little bit as you tried to swallow and breathe normally.

you had already told steph and the rest of your friends but why was it so much harder to tell kristie?

were you afraid of what she was going to say?

that you were going to leave the country, leave the nwsl, and leave her?

you take a deep breath to calm down and you gave it a little knock.

the door flies open in less than a second.

“y/n! what are you doing here?”

kristie’s cheery demeanor rattled you a little bit.

upon seeing your face she frowned.

“what’s wrong?”

“i-“

your mouth was so dry and it trembled a little.

you could feel your heartbeat in your ears, tears threatening to spill.

kristie’s looking at you with a face full of worry now, and you couldn’t get the words out.

“i-“

you close your mouth again and take a second to look at her.

noting the ways her eyes sparkled and the way her hair was falling out from her bun in little curls over her shoulders.

and then it comes out in a hushed whisper when you least expect it.

“i’m moving to england.”

kristie looks at you too stunned to speak.

she whispers:

“when are you leaving?”

you look down at the ground.

“tomorrow.”

you keep your eyes trained on the ground, too scared to look up at her, knowing that when you look at her the tears you’ve fought so hard to hold back are going to spill.

the silence that falls between you is too heavy. too thick. too constricting.

you find yourself lunging forward towards the midfielder, wrapping her in a hug as the tears spill.

“i’m so sorry i didn’t tell you sooner.”

kristie doesn’t say anything.

she just hugs you harder.

you break away when you have to, but as soon as you turn kristie grabs your wrist.

you turn to ask her what’s wrong but her lips are on yours in an instant.

before you can even process what happened she pulls back.

“you’re going to kill it in england.”

and then she walks into the apartment and shuts the door.

~~

ironically you walk into a door when you see her.

to be fair it wasn’t your fault.

it was hers.

well maybe it was yours.

your head had been all over the place in the past few days, ever since the prospect of seeing her was brought up.

when you had left five years ago, you couldn’t help but replay that kiss over and over in your head.

you couldn’t believe all the signs you had missed.

so yeah.

you were nervous.

and so with music blasting in your headphones, you were prepping for a run, and subsequently not paying any attention to where you were walking and she opens the door right in your face.

you stumble a little bit backwards, before falling down.

you haven’t even looked up, instead sitting on the ground rubbing your forehead and cursing.

it’s when a pair of sneakers appears in front of you that you look up.

and you actually choke on air.

before you stood the woman you had been thinking about, sporting an amused smile and quirked eyebrow.

she says something you don’t hear and it’s only when she leans down and takes your headphones off that you notice them.

your cheeks flush and you mutter an embarrassed “oops” which elicited a chuckle from the midfielder in front of you.

she extends her hand out to you and you take it, sparks shooting up your arm at the contact.

she pulls you into a hug and the two of you quickly fall into conversation.

here up close, you can spot all the changes and similarities of the girl you left 5 years ago.

the five years had been great to her, she was now even more breathtaking than before, no longer the awkward kid but a gorgeous woman.

she almost looks like a completely different person.

almost.

but you notice the same ways her eyes sparkle when she talks, the way the corners of her mouth tug up slowly when she smiles, and the way she tucks loose strands of hair behind her ear and you know this is the same girl you were so smitten with 5 years ago.

“you done checking me out now?”

your gaze snaps back up to her face and blush, a little surprised by her statement.

kristie gives you a teasing smile before saying:

“come on i’m just joking.”

she even has the audacity to wink at you.

and this behavior continues.

for the whole training camp she flirts with you.

you’re a little taken aback by the confidence in the girl.

with the constant winking and flirting and fleeting touches you’re pretty sure she’s trying to kill you.

“y/n. y/n!”

sonnett’s voice snaps your gaze back onto her face.

“sorry what?”

“you were so far into la la land i almost had to get ryan gosling to come get you.”

you shoot her an annoyed look.

“oh shut up no.”

your eyes drift back to the other side of the field, to where kristie was.

sonnett rests her chin on your shoulder and says:

“so who are we checking out today?”

you turn to her and scowl.

“no one.”

“you’re no fun.”

“no.”

“come on you love me.”

“no.”

~~

and of course she scores.

of course.

no matter how hyped the game was.

or how difficult the netherlands defense was.

of course she scores.

she had been on for less than two minutes when she did so too.

you’re so excited you almost trip over your own feet.

she runs to you and you catch her as she jumps, and soon the rest of the team comes to envelop the two of you in a hug.

“i’m so fucking proud of you,” you whisper, and when everyone has relaxed a little, she kisses you.

it’s firmer and more insistent than the one from five years ago.

it’s almost like she knows what she wants and what you want.

you pull away after a few seconds, but only because you have a game to win still.

“come on kris let’s kick some ass.”

you let go of her and the two of you make your way back to your positions.

a few of your arsenal teammate shoot you teasing glances, and you blush when you meet them.

and when the whistle blows thirty minutes later, they make sure to tease you about it after the game.

you see kristie walking towards you and you grin, but before she gets there sam steps in front of you.

you look up at her, and when she doesn’t speak you fill the silence.

“i promise not to hurt her.”

sam quirks an eyebrow and leans in to whisper:

“you better not. or i will tear off your arm and beat you with i-“

“sam!”

kristie gives her sister a little slap in the arm before pulling you away with her.

“hey.”

“um h-hey,” you stammer, rubbing your neck nervously.

“you’re so cute.”

you blush a bit, your heart racing.

kristie catches your hand when it comes down and intertwines her fingers with yours.

“go on a date with me?”

you blush even harder and nod enthusiastically, not trusting your voice at this point.

she gives you a look before leaning in and connecting her lips with yours.

“hey please don’t bang my sister on the field!”

#kristie mewis #kristie mewis x reader #kristie mewis imagine #uswnt imagine #uswnt x reader #woso imagine #woso imagines

[vanillawhiskeyflavoredkisses]

I just have to get this off my chest after seeing some very disturbing posts about 9/11 floating around on my dash as well as some truly crude commentary. A lot probably won't agree with my sentiments but I feel like this needs to be said.

I've seen a lot of things on Tumblr in the past that maybe I consider to be in poor taste or don't agree with but I usually just scroll past, sometimes block for curating sake, but today is the first time I truly was shell-shocked. To see the memes and blasé jokes people are making about this day are just absolutely horrific and appalling.

I get that a lot of people on this site now may not remember what happened that day and only learned second hand through school or media or other people telling them. I get that a lot occurred after this that wasn't right which we definitely should be learning from. I also get that there is a lot of anti-American and anti-white sentiments going around currently, especially on this site.

But here's the thing:

Not only Americans died that day. Not only white people died that day. That's the thing about terrorists and what these hijackers did: they don't care about your skin color, your culture, your religious preference, your sexual orientation, your gender orientation, your age, your economic status, your personality, whether you support them or not, your political persuasion, your job, or any of it. Everyone is fair game to them. For crying out loud, look at what the Afghani people are currently going through and how the Taliban are treating their own country's people, women especially. If you think this is bad (which it truly is), have you seen how things went under their rule before 9/11 even happened? Do you know their terrifyingly violent and brutal history? Women had acid thrown in their faces if they didn't wear a full hijab. People were mutilated or executed if they didn't fall in line with the law of the Taliban. And this doesn't even begin to go into Al-Qaeda or Isis. But I'm not here to talk about that or delve into that topic too much.

My point in mentioning all of this is that white Americans weren't the only ones that were killed that day. People of all faiths, of all colors, of different countries, died that day, too. And the unity that is consistently discussed every 9/11 anniversary is in regards to us being aware of that fact, us mourning all of their losses together, and the collective desire to come together and help once the planes hit and after the towers collapsed.

So when people say "why am I supposed to cry over white Americans getting killed that day" think about that. Not only white Americans died that day. And regardless of their color, their nationality, their culture, their religion, etc. anyone dying is always sad. Whether it be a jetliner being used as a weapon that crashed into their floor or someone dying of cancer or someone being killed in a mudslide or someone dying in a car accident -- it is always sad. And empathy should always be shown in response, even if it doesn't impact you personally. Let's not forget these people have loved ones that got left behind, that are still here.

So when people say "if something knocks into a cow and knocks it over, I'm not expected to care, but if something knocks into a building and knocks it over, suddenly I'm supposed to care?" think about that. People aren't grieving two large pieces of steel architecture. People aren't saying "always remember those two towers". The WTC Towers were a symbol (yes, for American wealth, I get it) but became so much more of a multi-faceted powerful symbol after 9/11. The towers represent a way of life before 9/11 happened, but more importantly they represent the people lost that day, who were in the towers when they collapsed. For all of the first responders who were stuck on those floors still trying to help evacuate people to safety when the buildings finally gave. The two footprints and two blue lights aren't a symbol of American wealth or a naivete and simpler way of life pre-9/11 - they are a symbol of memorialization for that day. The Freedom Tower was erected to show that despite the loss of that day, we stood united (even if there seems to be more and more division these days). It's a message to the world that yes, destruction and death happened that day in NYC, but so did rebuilding and life carrying on. It's a symbol of strength, resilience, and unity - something that was everywhere you looked days after this event occurred. The two towers (aka NYC) may have gotten knocked down but the city got back up. They weren't kept down - that's the point of the Freedom Tower.

When people say "I don't understand, what is it that I shouldn't be forgetting since I can't remember it anyway" here is what we all should be remembering despite our age or our connection (or lack thereof) with this event:

2,997 innocent civilians died that day. Among them were 343 firefighters, 37 police officers, 23 Port Authority police officers, 8 EMS workers, and 4 other first responders. Also among them were 246 people on the four planes that crashed.

The passengers of United Flight 93 made a choice to fight back against the hijackers and saved lives that day by sacrificing their own.

Many children lost parents. Many parents lost children. Many brothers lost sisters, and many sisters lost brothers. Many spouses lost their significant others. Many lost friends, family, and loved ones.

For those who want a better connection to this day who didn't experience it and/or don't remember it, and for those others who are seriously lacking in empathy: yes, it was a highly publicized event due to the hundreds of cameras (including media outlets) watching that day, but if the horrific images aren't enough to garner some of your empathy, then there are plenty of other resources at your disposal. Documentaries like 9/11 by James Hanlon and the Naudet brothers, 102 Minutes That Changed America (which shows you not only all of the first-hand eyewitness accounts that day but also lets you hear 911 calls, radio transmissions between firefighters, and people's reactions to the event and each other who were there), 9/11 Firefighters (on Discovery Plus) and even more recently, 9/11: The Turning Point (on Netflix) which provides a 360 degree view of the events that led up to 9/11, 9/11 itself, and what came after, displaying all different viewpoints. You can read the 9/11 Commission Report or there are several books and memoirs out there like Wake-Up Call by Kristen Breitweiser, or even historical accounts in books, newspaper articles, and online. But most importantly, listen to people's stories. The ones who were there, the ones who saw it happen, the ones who ran in to help, the ones who lost loved ones. That is the most important part and the most powerful. On Hulu, ABC News ran segments of 9/11 Twenty Years Later, "Women Of Resilience" being especially powerful. It's hard not to feel a human connection to these stories or any kind of empathy.

For those who are making these jokes and memes, if you like shows like 9-1-1 and Chicago Fire, etc, imagine those first responder characters rushing into those buildings to save lives and losing theirs in the process. If you don't remember 9/11 or feel any connection or empathy, imagine hundreds of Bucks or Eddies or Bobbys or Hens or Chimneys dying that day as they worked to save so many. Sorry to be so blunt because I love those characters too, but do you get a little bit of the connection now? Do you feel any empathy? I'm not trying to equate real life heroes and sheroes with fictional characters of course, but if it helps you to understand a little better in some way, well...I'm throwing it out there.

I myself lived in the Tri-State area at the time of the attacks. I remember seeing the second plane seconds before it crashed into the second building. I remember the devastation I felt watching the first tower collapse knowing that a loved one was most likely inside and how hard I cried thinking he was dead. (thankfully, he had been late to work that day and he got out of the area before the towers came down) I remember the relief and gratefulness we all felt hearing from him to assure us that he was alive when he finally was able to get to a phone, stating he was covered in dust and ash from the buildings. I remember the panic and fear we all felt, thinking the world was ending and we were all going to die, that this was it, this was World War III, after it was confirmed that the Pentagon had also been hit and there was also a downed plane in Pennsylvania. I remember the grief another loved one suffered because she lost her entire floor (she had been out sick that day) and every single one of her co-workers. I remember the race to pick up children from school and get them home as soon as possible. I remember the rage that coursed through us seeing the footage of some people in certain countries celebrating the attacks in the streets, enjoying the deaths of so many Americans, a couple of these countries who lost citizens themselves in these attacks. I remember the camping out in front of the televisions night after night for a week straight afterwards, watching the news 24/7, worrying that there might be more attacks. I remember the feeling of sheer terror anytime a plane was heard overhead or seen appearing low enough in the sky that you could practically make out which airline it was for months afterwards. I remember seeing the lights the first time they were lit from our home. I remember feeling pure fear not only for what happened that day but also what came afterwards (not yet understanding that these weren't practitioners of Islam that did this but radical extremists who had literally hijacked the religion). I remember seeing the devastation at Ground Zero through a tear in the fabric over a fence as we walked through the city months afterwards. I remember not wanting to fly for years. I remember the anger I felt that our government had failed us due to political bs between agencies and countless others (which we found out especially when the 9/11 Commission Report came out) and that because of this horrific and absurd failure, thousands of innocent people had died. I remember seeing the crushed ladder truck, and the toy of the little girl who was on one of the planes at the 9/11 Memorial Museum and all of the pictures in that room that just floored me. (I also remember being pissed off that many were treating it as a selfie op where they were allowed to take pictures, completely missing the point of the museum's existence) But most of all, I remember feeling that life would never be the same for any of us ever again, and that the feeling of safety we had naively enjoyed on September 10, 2001 would never return.

But I also remember the compassion and unity we saw rising in the country after those attacks. I remember the gratitude for all of our first responders, those we lost that day and those who were still with us, actively working to recover those lost and to clear Ground Zero. I remember the feeling of collectiveness, that we all shared grief and showed support to one another in those days afterwards. I remember the fallen heroes and sheroes who ran into those buildings, who were off duty but raced from wherever they were that day to come and help. I remember The Man In the Red Bandana aka Welles Crowther (and many like him who worked to save others) who has become another important symbol of that day. I remember hearing all of the stories of people helping one another before and after the towers collapsed. I remember the good that this day represents. That while we may have seen some of the worst of humanity that day in the form of violence, death, weaponized airplanes, and devastation, we also saw the very best of humanity in the form of our first responders and people helping one another.

Look, did Islamophobia happen? Yes. Was it right? No, absolutely not. As I stated above, I myself feared the idea of the religion until I was educated by a friend of mine about the difference between the religion and extremism. This form of hijacking ideology can be seen in examples like the Westboro Baptist Church or even Hitler. Terrorists do not represent the true spirit of Islam no matter what the former tries to force people to believe. Just as the WBC is not the true spirit of Christianity, and so on and so forth. But even during the time I had feared the religion before gaining understanding and clarity, I never confronted or mistreated any practicing Muslim or Arab-American. Ever. I never posted hate or spewed vitriol against them. Just like with the current pandemic, I still cannot believe there are people out there attack Asian-Americans as if this whole thing is their fault. That's still mind boggling to me and it is absolutely 100% WRONG. It should not be happening. Same with Islamophobia. And it breaks my heart to read that many Arab-Americans and practicing Muslims still worry when this anniversary comes around that they may be attacked. It might not mean much, but I just want to say I am truly sorry for that and you have my full support. Always.

Did we go to war and was it just? Yes we did go to war. Was it just? Afghanistan? I need more information in order to have a fully-formed opinion but there are plenty who say yes and plenty who say no. Plenty who say we made things better over there (before we exited and the Taliban advanced) and plenty who say we didn't and only made it worse. I truly cannot say which assertion is correct and I think it would be narrow-minded and completely moronic (and possibly arrogant and presumptuous?) of me to speak on a subject I know so little about, one way or the other. Iraq? No, I don't think it was just and I honestly wish we could go back and do things differently.

But coming back to 9/11 and what this day means for so many, the people who died, the people who rushed headfirst into danger, the people who lost their loved ones. We saw incredible bravery, selflessness, and compassion for your fellow human that day despite what happened. We saw the strength within ourselves despite the fear and anger. We saw resilience. That is what the anniversary is meant to be a reminder of. The sacrifices, the loss, the courage, and the strength. Black, White, Gay, Straight, Christian, Muslim, Man, Woman, Young, Old -- it didn't matter. We all came together.

So regardless of whether it's the cool thing to do right now on this site (or elsewhere) to hate on America or 9/11 or white Americans or the anniversary itself on the very anniversary of these attacks, I ask that you please consider when posting these hurtful (and frankly harmful) words of hatred and vitriol such as referenced above that there are people out there who lost their loved ones on 9/11, that yes some of them may be on this very site and going through the 9/11 tag, and that some of them may have even lost a loved one in either war and are again on this site reading your words. Regardless of what you think or feel, please consider them and tag appropriately if you're going to post. Please consider that some of these people are currently losing their loved ones due to 9/11-related illnesses because of the cleanup at Ground Zero. Please consider that there are children who lost a parent or loved one, or who were orphaned that day (yes, they exist, we had some in our school district) who are also on this site reading your words. Basically, please just consider and be considerate. Please stop spreading hatred on a day that happened due to hatred; please stop perpetuating that cycle.

Like Martin Luther King Jr. said, "Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that."

TLDR: Love and light, my friends. Love and light. ✌️❤️

#9/11 #never forget #remember 9/11 #9/11 isnt a joke or a meme

[nerdy-bookworm-1998]

I’ll Be Home For Christmas

Pairing: Steve Rogers x Reader Words: 1607 Warnings: Fluff, Angst, Drugging, Mentions of assassinations, Implied human trafficking, one swear word A/N: This is part of my 25 Days of Christmas Writing Challenge. For those that are interested, I still have 18 request spots available. Just send me a request for what you would like me to write along with the character. I will write for Steve Rogers, Bucky Barnes, Tony Stark, Peter Parker, Legolas, Thranduil, and Kili. Feedback and reblogs are appreciated. If you want to be tagged in future works, just drop me an ask.

With less than a week left until Christmas Eve, the compound is silent. Steve had been gone on a recon mission in Stuttgart since just after Thanksgiving. The rest of the team were all spending time with their loved ones all over the country. I had just settled in for a Game of Thrones binge-session when Friday announces that my presence is required in the briefing room.

With a long-suffering sigh, I haul myself up from the couch and shuffle over to the elevators that would take me out of the living quarters and to the floor where all the offices, interrogation, and conference rooms are. After a short ride and even shorter stroll, I reach the right door and enter without bothering to knock.

At the front of the room stands Maria Hil, Tony, and Nick Fury. They all look up from where they are bent over a hologram when I enter. "Agent 19, you're right on time. Please, have a seat," Nick says, pointing to the chairs around the table. I take the one closest to the front.

"What is this about?" I enquire.

"What do you know about Kevin Ivanovich?" Maria asks, getting straight to the point.

"He's a former KGB operative working out of Moscow. He's responsible for the assassination of over 30 SHIELD agents, but we've never been able to catch him," I recall from the stories Nat and Clint had told me.

"We've received a tip-off from local intelligence that Mr. Ivanovich will be crawling out of his hiding place for a holiday gala hosted by Borris and Elena Makaveli. It also just so happens to be a cover for a silent auction on everything from advanced weaponry to enhanced individuals. We already have agents in place to take down the auction. But Ivanovich is known for escaping the net, no matter how tight it is. Which is where you come in," Maria explains as she hands me the folder with all relevant information. "We need you to go to Moscow, posing as the daughter and heir of a wealthy American arms-dealer, standing in for her father at the auction. We need you to charm him, get him to trust you by helping him escape the party, let his guard down. Once it is, we need you to drug him and take him to the American embassy, where I will be waiting to transport him to the Raft. Do you have any questions?"

"Yeah, I have a few questions. What is the name of my alias? How am I getting to Russia? How am I getting into the party? And when do I leave?" I ask, crossing my legs.

"The informant sent over an invitation for you. I'm loaning you a private jet with a crew that will take you directly to Moscow Sheremetyevo International Airport, where a car and driver will be waiting for you. You leave in the next two hours. We thought you could pick out your alias yourself," Tony answers with his usual flamboyancy.

Once the meeting is over, I head directly to my room. I pick a large suitcase to store my clothing, toiletries, and accessories for the trip. I choose a smaller, matching case to hold my favorite knives and guns. Finally, I go to the safe in the back of my closet. Inside are several manilla envelopes with the names of my various aliases written on top. After several moments of contemplation, I take out the envelope bearing the name Alexandra Gilbert and toss it onto my bed before going back into my closet to change.

A pair of white-washed skinny jeans, a red cashmere sweater, knee-high black leather boots trimmed with faux fur, and a faux fur coat later, I'm mission ready.

A short car ride, a nine-hour-long flight, and another car ride through peak-hour traffic, I am checked into a luxurious suite at the St. Regis hotel (generously paid for by Stark Industries).

The next evening, after a day of tourist-related activities, I am dressed in a burgundy colored evening gown with golden stilettos and accessories as I ascend the steps of the Bolshoi Theatre. The guards at the entrance take a cursory glance at my invitation before directing me on where to go.

Once inside, it is easy enough to find my mark and strut over to where he is seated at the bar. After ordering a drink and an hour of flirting, one of Ivanovich's men walks over to whisper in his ear. He gives a short nod before turning back to me with a simpering smile. "It would seem the main attraction of the evening is about to start. Would you like me to escort you, gorgeous?" he asks in his thick Russian accent.

"I would be honored, handsome," I answer with a coy smile, hooking my arm through his as he leads me across the room and to a side door, hidden behind a curtain. We walk down a long hallway, my heels clicking on the polished marble floor until we reach a large, dome-shaped room filled with people dressed in their finest suits and dresses milling about the room as they peruse the items up for auction.

We had already circled the room twice when a guard bursts in shouting that SHIELD was on their way just before a flashbang went off and people dressed in black tactical gear flooded into the room.

"Follow me!" I yell at Ivanovich, pulling him behind me to the hidden door along the wall closest to us, then through another series of hallways until we reach outside of the building where a car was waiting for us.

Once in the car, I hand him a glass of vodka, which he downs immediately. Barely five minutes have passed before he is slumped over in his seat, snoring loudly. I direct the driver to turn around and drive to the American Embassy while I put Ivanovich in a pair of vibranium handcuffs, then turn to look out at the snowstorm raging outside the window.

After Maria had taken custody of the Raft's newest guest, I head back to my hotel room to change clothes, pick up my bags, and make for the airport. I had called ahead to tell the captain to get the plane ready for departure. However, when I get to the airport, all flights had been delayed indefinitely due to the storm.

With a disheartened sigh, I find a cafè and buy myself a large hot chocolate and a croissant. Sitting at a small table in the corner, I take out my phone and unlock it, staring at the picture of Steve and I with our arms wrapped around each other at Tony's Halloween party last year. We had gone as Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf. I briefly contemplate calling him to let him know I probably wouldn't be back in time for Christmas before a voice opposite me draws my attention.

"Excuse me, miss, but is this seat taken?" says the one voice I would recognize anywhere. Whipping my head up, I'm face to face with Steve. He looks angelic, bundled up in a blue and white sweater with a white t-shirt and light wash jeans with boots, his cheeks, and nose a rosy red from the cold wind outside.

"Steve!" I squeal as I hop out of my seat to throw myself into his arms.

"Hey, gorgeous," he grins as he wraps his arms around me, burying his face in my hair. "Fuck, I missed you so much," he mumbles.

"Language, cap," I tease while burying my face in his chest, breathing in the smell of home. After several long moments of just quietly standing together, I hesitantly pull back far enough to see his face. "I don't understand what are you doing in Russia of all places? I thought you would be home by now."

"Well, by the time the mission was over, the storm had already closed down the airport where I was supposed to take off. The guy at the office told me I might have better luck getting a flight at a larger airport. I was planning on grabbing a coffee before trying my luck at one of the airline desks when I saw you sitting here. What are you doing here?" he asks, delicately cupping my cheek as if to check that I'm real.

"I had a mission here. I was supposed to be a tourist, so Tony let me borrow one of his private jets. I was about to go home, but the plane was grounded because of the storm," I explain.

Over the next few hours, we sit in the cafè, sipping hot chocolate and just talking while we wait for the storm to pass. It's nearly midnight when I get a call from the pilot that they had been cleared to fly. Grabbing our luggage, Steve and I make a mad dash for the plane. Once we're on board, the stewardess closes the door and helps us get settled before telling the pilot that everything is ready for takeoff.

We reach New York just as the sun is starting to set. Happy is at the airstrip to pick us up and take us back to the compound, where the rest of the team and their loved ones are already gathered, for dinner.

When we stroll into the dining room hand in hand, Tony cheers, "The lovebirds are back! Now Capsicle can carve the turkey so we can eat," he grins while the rest laugh, and we take our seats at the table filled with our family.

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#marvel #avengers #snowstorm #light angst #angst with a happy ending #fluff #drugging #mentions of assassinations #implied human trafficking #creepy guys being creepy #swearing #racing to get home for the holidays #steve rogers #steve rogers x reader #gryffindor girls 25 days of Christmas writing challenge

[chilling-seavey]

Passchendaele WW2 Extension - Friends, Falls, and Close Calls

Notice from the RAF: This letter has been scanned and sensitive information has been removed for the safety of our nation.

Mum and Dad,

The British, Americans, and Canadians are planning an offensive for next spring, and training has already started. After four years of war, it’s about time we start to actually push back. A few towns in the south of England have been evacuated for us to stay and I feel badly sleeping in someone else’s bed while they are forced out of their homes. However, I must admit that it’s much more comfortable than the bunks on base. Charlie and I have met a few American soldiers here as they came over for training too. Their officers feel much more intimidating, but I suppose that’s how the work gets done. After four years it’s not like I’m unfamiliar with harsh orders and demands. Charlie and I are still flying our same plane and it’s nice to have that consistency. Not that it’s a terribly big deal to keep flying the same plane but it makes us feel like better pilots!

Anyway, I have to go. We have a drill in a few minutes and they wait for no one! I love you both lots.

Your son,

Richie

April 30, 1925

“Brrrrrrrrrrrrrr- good weather for a flight today.”

“Very good weather, Pilot Charlie.”

The boys were in the Besson’s front lawn in the spring afternoon with their toy planes in hand, running around with them held up to recreate their path of flying. They were mimicking the sounds of engines with their lips as they ran in circles around the perimeter of the yard. At seven-years-old, pretending to be pilots was their way to escape their little hometown and let their imaginations truly soar. It was their favourite little game.

They tried to speak over each other as they dialogued back and forth, making up a story as to where they were flying and why. The adults sat on the front porch with their tea, talking amongst themselves while the kids played, unphased by the boys’ shouting and little engine noises as they ran in circles together.

However, the two seven-year-olds weren’t terribly coordinated or good at looking where they were going and they ended up running right into each other in the middle of the yard, smacking together hard and both toppling backwards onto the grass. The impact stunned them into silence and they stared at each other with wide eyes, Charlie’s only going wider as he saw the blood trickling down his best friend’s chin.

Neither of them spoke for a moment and Richie finally lifted his hand to his mouth, finding his front tooth knocked out and his gum bleeding down his lips and chin. The boys just stared at each other, unmoving, their seven-year-old brains too in shock to even know what the heck to do next.

“Are you boys alright?” Corbyn asked from the porch as the four adults looked over at their sudden silence.

The boys turned to their parents with wide eyes, Richie’s blood dripping onto his shirt and the adults gasped at the state of him.

“Richard!” Christine gasped and jumped up to tend to her injured son.

Richard only broke into a grin and shrieked with laughter, “That was so cool!”

Christine stopped at the edge of the porch as the boys literally rolled on the grass in fits of laughter, obviously unhurt by their crash. Corbyn stood beside his wife as they watched their son wipe his chin with his shirt before turning to the grass to look for his missing tooth. When he found it, he jumped up and ran over to his parents, holding it up to them.

“Look! My tooth fell out!”

“I think your best friend knocked it out.” Corbyn laughed, holding out his hand to take the tooth from Richie.

“I’m sorry.” Charlie mumbled from a few feet back.

“Accidents happen. It was going to come out eventually.” Corbyn assured him.

Charlie nodded and shuffled up the porch to his mother’s outstretched hand, a small pout on his lips while Richie was taken inside to clean himself up and get a new shirt. Elizabeth pulled Charlie onto her lap and pressed a kiss to his cheek as he leaned back against her and Daniel passed their son a little tea biscuit from the table. Charlie smiled softly at his father and munched the treat gladly as he waited for his friend to return.

Moments later, the front door burst open and Richie came running about outside in clean clothes and a washed face and jumped down the front steps of the porch, “Come on, Charlie!”

May 20, 1943

“Come on, Charlie! Pull up!” Richard shouted from behind him.

The empty bullets flying around them only rose their anxieties as Charlie tugged hard on the joystick, but the plane wasn’t responding.

“It won’t fucking budge!” Charlie swore loudly, slamming his hand down against the dashboard as if it would help. “Piece of shit fucking plane, go up.”

“Well bloody well do something! They’re coming up behind us!” Richie ordered, panic apparent in his voice.

They chose a sharp dive instead, ducking out of the way of the next round of empty shells. Eleven thousand metres above the earth and under training fire from their officers and their controls were malfunctioning. They could only thank God it wasn’t real enemy fire or they would be done for.

Even still, the skies were filled with other RAF pilots deep in their training for dogfights that were to be expected once Operation Overlord was sent into action the following year. There was a lot of be done. Training was pushing them harder than normal and running drills in the dead of night to keep them on high alert at all times. It seemed the lack of sleep had caught up to Charlie and he had forgotten about the routine check of the plane that morning, missing the obvious malfunction in the wing.

To say he was panicking was an understatement and his anxieties only made Richie worse too, the two of them struggling to dodge their officers’ training fire by weak seconds. They were honestly yelling at each other in the cockpit, speaking over each other and arguing over directions and orders and the fact that no matter what they did they couldn’t go up.

“Did you not check the wings, Charles?” Richard shouted angrily.

“No! I forgot! We were in a rush! We were already late because you-”

“I didn’t do shit! It’s your job to check the plane before training! Fuck! What the hell do we do now, huh?! We’re going to crash and it’s going to be all your fault!”

“Stop fucking screaming at me for a second!” Charlie yelled. “Let me think!”

Richard grumbled unpleasantries under his breath as he glanced around them to make them aware of their officers’ ‘enemy’ planes in relation to their location. A flick caught his eye and he turned to the left to see a small flame sparking on their wing.

“Oh…shit. Charlie, we’re on fire. We’re on fucking fire, mate!” Richard said quickly, literally reaching forward to tap his best friend’s shoulder.

Charlie looked out the left side window and his eyes went wide as the small spark easily caught into a larger flame, “Christ. Okay. We gotta fucking land, right now.”

Charlie flicked a few switches on the dashboard, and they pushed down into a dive. The wind whipping past them only seemed to make the fire larger and Charlie turned on their radio to alert their squadron of their emergency landing as they made their way back towards the training base. Richard watched with wide eyes as scraps of metal flicked off the plane as the fire was eating them bit by bit.

“Oh God.” Richard whimpered, looking down to the dashboard in front of him to check their location. His eyes caught on the photographed painting of Saturn taped to the side of the display and he bit hard at his bottom lip, “Come on. Come on. Come on.”

“I see the base. Unbuckle, Richie. We’re gonna have to run. This thing’s gonna fucking explode.” Charlie said, keeping one hand on the dash to steer while his other unclipped the straps keeping him in as well as his large parachute in order to get an easy exit.

The plane was nearly shuttering and the cockpit was getting hot as the fire grew bigger and they were almost sure the wheels were about to snap off with how hard they hit the field beside the town they were training in.

“Pull back!” Charlie shouted loudly and both of them yanked hard on the controls to screech the plane to a stop.

The moment they were still, they clamoured out of the cockpit – Richie nearly falling right off the opposite wing as he jumped out and made a run for the town to get as far away from the plane as possible. Charlie stopped and turned back.

“Charles! Get the fuck out of there!” Richie screamed after him as he watched his best friend run back to the plane. “Are you mad?!”

Charlie held his hand over his mouth behind the smell of burning gas as he reached into the cockpit and snatched the photograph of him and his father from where it was taped to the dash. He then ran after Richard, toppling right into him with a startle as the plane exploded seconds later into a huge burst of flames. The two best friends hit the ground together, hands over their heads in fear they were still too close but after a moment they looked up to their safety. A few crew men were rushing over to tend to the destroyed plane as it sat in the middle of the field and burned black smoke high into the bright blue sky.

Charlie rolled over onto his back, panting, and pushed himself into a sitting position. Richard followed, giving his friend a hard shove to the shoulder.

“Bastard. We could have fucking died…and not even honourably: in training, for Christ’s sake.”

Charlie let out a deep exhale and held his face in his hands for a moment, the sweat dripping from his hairline making a trail down his cheek and across his jaw, and he took a few breaths before looking down at the photograph he ran back for. He held it to his chest and looked up to the sky through his breathlessness. “I’m sorry, Richie. I should have checked the plane. I’m a fucking fool.”

Richard sighed and tucked his knees up towards his chest as they watched their plane burn, “Nah, you’re not. Accidents happen.”

Charlie sniffled and nodded lightly, glancing back down at the picture in his hand, “I didn’t grab your photograph.”

“That’s alright.” Richie assured him. “Real thing’s hanging in my bedroom back home anyway. One more second over there and they’d be pulling you out of that mess of flames.”

Charlie didn’t answer, just stared down at his picture.

“You didn’t grab any of Mary’s things.” Richard noted.

Charlie sniffled and shrugged, “This was the only thing I could even think of, truthfully.”

Richard smiled at his best friend and they looked back to their plane. There was a moment of silence as they sat on the grass together.

Richie spoke up first casually, “What was that Mary said about this being a ‘lucky plane’?”

Charlie cracked a small smile at his best friend’s teasing joke and nudged him playfully with his elbow. Richard draped his arm around him and they leaned together quietly, watching their once beloved plane destroy itself into flames. 

Taglist: @randomlimelightxxx​ @hopinglimelight​ @hiya-its-amber​ @chanelwonders​

#✉ #why dont we #daniel seavey #corbyn besson #daniel seavey fanfic #corbyn besson fanfic

[minhomas-tmr]

The Lies I Tell Myself - Chapter 4

The plane ride was short but too much turbulence if anyone wanted Minho’s true opinion. Also the landing was terrible…

Bad flying or not, Thomas slept through it all, hair fluffed up cutely as he leaned on his side. Unknown to him, Minho at some point lifted the armrest between their seats, so Thomas ended up curled against Minho instead.

Seeing more than one person smiling as they passed them, had him soak up the misunderstanding since an actual relationship with Thomas would probably never happen. It was good to know however, that they were convincible enough to pass as a couple.

Minho understood where they were coming from though. Thomas hardly slept these days between homework and his family meeting Minho—so Thomas being adorable and snuggling in to get comfortable?

God help him, he had it bad. — “Ugh, how could you not tell me they were passing snacks, huh?”

“Shut your whining and grab the baggage would you?” Minho suppressed an eye-roll. “When we get to the hotel, I’ll call room service, okay?”

“Is that allowed?” Thomas asked as they followed signs for the exit.

“Yeah it’s all paid for. The to-be-family rich or something?”

“Hefty trust fund,” Thomas muttered unhappily. “It was a requirement for her,”

“Oh. Wow.”

“Yeah, I know right?”

“No, I mean the car they sent to pick us up,” Minho pointed to the BMW with Thomas’ name on the plaque their driver was holding. “You sure she dislikes you?”

“She’s bragging.” Thomas insisted. “I’m only here because mom wanted me to be remember? Uhh…what are you doing?”

“Surely you know the concept of opening a door for someone else?” Minho couldn’t suppress the eye roll this time and gently pushed Thomas in when he just stood by it. As the driver started the car, he leaned in to peck Thomas softly on the cheek and thread his fingers through Thomas’.

He pretended not to notice his fake boyfriend’s face turn tomato-red. — “Not bad…” Thomas walked into their suite. “He must be really rich or something, if everyone’s rooms look like this…” When he turned to Minho, he was greeted with an annoyed look. “What??”

“You’re being ridiculous. She took sides sure but maybe, dunno maybe she’s trying to buy your love? Rich or no, only visiting family would get this royal treatment,”

“Maybe the fiancée suggested it?” Thomas offered.

“Quite possibly,” Minho smiled and weirdly that made Thomas relax, but there sure didn’t last, “Looks like we’ll have to order room service when we get back. I’ve laid out your clothes here by the way…”

Thomas grabbed the clothes and dashed to the washroom to change into his blazer outfit. He was acting like an idiot right now, but he would act 100% more idiotic if he had to watch Minho change.

By the time he was done, Minho was ready. Was there anything he didn’t look good in? Minho gave him a quick once over, “You look exactly like I thought you would,” he smirked.

“Fuckable?” Thomas blushed.

“Decent, clean and polite more like,” his flatmate approached him, casually fixing Thomas’ hair and he let it go on until he grew suspicious that Minho was teasing him now.

“If you want to touch me so much, you don’t have to only do it here remember? I’m your boyfriend. Or even…we don’t have to go to the brunch right? We can just stay in and get room service...”

“Now what kind of boyfriend would I be if I gave into all your demands?”

Thomas turned to him, “A good one!”

“You’re lucky you’re white and cute, Thomas.”

“Hey!”

“I’m kidding, you’re precious,” Minho pecked Thomas on his lips sweetly and turned around before he realized what he just did. Composing his face, Minho turned back around to Thomas staring at him wide eyed.

“Test run?” Thomas offered timidly.

Minho took it with both hands and ran with it. “Already feels natural doesn’t it?”

“Yeah,”

“Yeah.” Minho echoed. Shit.

“You look too fuckable for a welcome brunch,” Thomas swiftly changed subjects to a moderately safer one.

“Devour-a-ble would you say?” Minho’s sass was back.

“You’re lucky you’re hot! Because your jokes are seriously terrible.” Thomas eyed Minho’s lips, debated giving him a peck to continue the joke but he wasn’t that brave.

Or rather he was afraid he might not stop. “Which reminds me,” he said out loud, “brunch is tame. Maybe hold hands but no kissing?”

“Why? Forgot your lessons already? You want a refresher?” Minho teased.

“Unfortunately we don’t have the time…” Thomas sighed, “That would have been wayy more fun than having to see Teresa and the poor bastard marrying her. I don’t know if I should congratulate him or apologize,”

“Would kissing you shut you up?”

“Try it,” the words were out of his mouth before he even registered it. Minho had a calculative look in his eyes but turned away in the end, mumbling something about a watch.

Thomas mentally facepalmed. — Minho really did look devour-able and Thomas should have protested the outfit when he had the chance.

He couldn’t hide his smugness though, when as soon as he stepped out the car, Minho held his hand as they walked into the back gate of the venue, decorated in soft hues.

“So what’s the game plan?”

“Umm let’s see…Say hi to Teresa, make sure my mom does not talk to you, and get out right after we eat?”

“Wow Thomas. I didn’t know you were so keen on the promise of room service? Don’t know if they have flight snacks on the menu,” Minho laughed as Thomas pushed him away playfully. “And why keep me away from your mom? I’m great with people!”

“I know,” Thomas grumbled, threading his fingers with Minho’s absently. “That’s the problem. Everyone you meet manages to fall in love with you. My mom can’t fall victim to you too.”

“You’re making me sound like a serial killer,” Minho joked, “You fell victim too then?”

“I’m your boyfriend aren’t I?” Thomas rolled his eyes. They were still a little away from the crowd of guests.

Technically they didn’t have to put on their act yet, so when Minho paused for that millisecond, Thomas realized what he’d said. For once, he did a great job at convincingly pretending obliviousness. — People were looking at them. A lot. Thomas starting to feel self-conscious, leaned closer to Minho and gripped his hand tighter.

Though it didn’t show on his face, Minho bent down to whisper in Thomas’s ear, sounding worried, “Are you okay?”

“I don’t know,” Thomas admitted softly.

Minho tilted his head up slightly caressing his cheek. “I’m here. I won’t leave you,” He had no idea how much those words meant to Thomas, the significance of them, the difference it made. He relaxed...he was safe.

Minho threaded their fingers once more and Thomas walked in with more confidence, pointing to people he knew and titbits about them.

But the one person he didn’t get an opportunity to point out, was suddenly in front of him. Thomas’ smile slipped and Minho picked on it immediately.

“Thomas.” Gally completely ignored Minho and something about that irked him but he’d be cordial.

“Gally.”

“You know when I heard you were bringing a boyfriend, I was a little disappointed. I thought we could mend things, you know? But knowing you...you move fast don’t you?”

Thomas saw the malicious glint in his eye, before he turned to Minho, “be careful about this one..the next pretty thing and he’s gone,”

“Is that so?” Minho replied mildly. “And who are you? Thomas never mentioned you. Friends of the groom? Speaking of..I’d like to meet him. Do you know where we can find him?”

“Uhh..”

Gally was thrown off and Thomas suppressed his smile. Minho could definitely be intimidating on first meet. He exuded confidence and admittedly Thomas had a different reaction to most, but it was there alright!

“Hm. I guess we can find him ourselves..Gully is it? Nice to meet you Gully,” he smiled, then turned to Thomas. — ‘Wait here, don’t talk to anybody’ was what Thomas had said, but seriously it wasn’t his fault that there were only two other asians apart from him, and both were from the Groom’s party.

Minho wasn’t even sure why Thomas had abandoned him and didn’t have much time to ponder before he was joined by a boy with curly brown hair and a perfectly round face.

“Hi there,” he frowned, “I don’t know you. Bride or Groom’s side?”

Minho was a bit taken aback by the directness at first, but shrugged, “Boyfriend of Bride’s side I suppose,”

“You suppose? And who is this boyfriend of yours?”

“Thomas Editton,” Minho smiled cheerfully. “I’m Minho by the way,”

“Chuck. So Thomas?”

“Yeah, he’s an awkward yet surprisingly charming individual.”

The boy was downright frowning now.“I don’t know about the charming part…”

“Oh so you know him?” Minho whispered conspiratorially. “We kind of started dating by the second week of college, so any embarrassing stories you can spare? He has so much ammo on me because my friends insist on sharing every fail in my life, and I sort of need some, see?”

“I see,” The chubby boy seemed to be warming up to him and Minho looked into his soft brown eyes, feeling a famil—oh shit. Of all the people to spot him first, it had to be one of Thomas’ relatives.

“Well he has a terrible sense of fashion?”

“Oh boy am I well aware,” Minho looked around for his ‘boyfriend’ and seemed to spot Thomas the same time he did Minho. A quick look at Minho’s current talking companion and Thomas’ shoulders relaxed.

“What was that about?”

“Wants me suppressing my serial killer instincts,” Minho said without thinking.

“An inside joke I assume?”

“An inside one, yeah,” Minho laughed, but his eyes softened as he watched Thomas make his way towards them. “He’s something special that one…”

Chuck eyed Minho, “You really do know him, huh?” Minho pursed his lips, not sure what to say. “Well, as disaapointed I was at Thomas keeping you a secret for so long, I’m happy for you guys. Just be patient with him, okay?”

“Every day’s a struggle,” Minho joked, but Chuck didn’t seem to be teasing, so he quietened down.

“Thomas..he’s been through a lot, see. Teresa never believed him which is why that stain is here,” Chuck muttered darkly, “I guess I don’t have to tell you, cause you already know about the cheating and blaming and the..that.”

Apparently it was so bad, Chuck didn’t even want to say the word. From the titbits of what Thomas shared and his jumpiness, Minho gathered Gally must have been abusive in some way. He felt terrible for all the times he’d been impatient with Thomas’ intimacy issues.

“Honestly I didn’t think Thomas would ever get over it. I didn’t think he’d be able to trust anyone so soon…So thank you,” Chuck smiled softly. Minho didn’t know what to say so he just smiled back.

Minho stayed chatting with Chuck until a middle-aged woman joined them. Minho didn’t know what to make of this, but the look on Chuck’s face made him suspicious.

“You must be Minho I suppose. So what’s your major again?”

Minho was a bit taken aback by the swift jump in topic but he replied, “Yes, ma’am. I’m majoring in Kinesiology, specifically sports related. I’m…a part of the Varsity Track team but also taking a Minor in Art History,”

“Must be a struggle to balance so many things at once. College. Parties.” Okay definitely some scrutinizing happening.

“It was a challenge at first, yes. A lot of trial and error,” Minho smiled sheepishly, “but Thomas has been a huge part of why I found my balance…”

“Interesting…” the woman hummed and before she could get another word out, Thomas appeared it seemed out of nowhere.

“Mother!”

Minho froze. Oh shit. Luckily Mrs. Editton and Chuck were now focusing on Thomas, so he had a moment to adjust his expression.

“I-I guess you’ve met Minho then,”

“Seeing as you were going to take forever to do so, I thought to take the initiative,” she smiled. Minho couldn’t decipher if it was said in good faith, but it was definitely a tense one. Thomas fidgeted, inching towards Minho until it practically looked like he was hiding behind him.

“Are you surprised though,” Minho pitched in, wanting to save his pretend-boyfriend, “In his own words, Thomas is an awkward butterfly,” Minho commented dryly.

“It’s still a turtle, Minho!” Thomas rolled his eyes at him.

“But turtles are so plain. Butterflies are pretty. Wouldn’t you rather be pretty?” Minho said with fondness. Thomas had no right being this cute.

“I-uh..” Thomas stuttered, “I’m getting a drink—“

Minho snagged Thomas’ current wine glass. “Yes, thank you for getting me one,” he smirked as Thomas looked like he was two seconds from fleeing, consequences be damned. “Shall we?”

Thomas grabbed Minho and practically dragged him away.

“Good news is, Chuck survived my deadly charm—“ Thomas rolled his eyes, “—bad news is, you’re mom knows because of the way you were acting.”

“Yeah, yeah, so I’m not the smoothest cat in this game,”

“No. You’re a turtle.”

“What about butterflies? I thought turtles were ugly?” God help him, Thomas was actually pouting.

“You’re the one that wanted to be a turtle so bad,” Minho shrugged, leading him to the bar. “Oh good! Open bar,”

“Well now I can explore other options too, right? Should I get a beer?”

“You hated the beers, threw them out remember? Try the rum. No, no you peasant. The golden rum.”

“Mount Gay? You’re not as funny as you think, Minho.”

“Gay used to mean happy,” Minho shook his head, faking disappointment, “Besides, its expensive. Get it with coke though. You’re a lightweight.”

“When did you get so observant?” Thomas frowned but ordered Minho’s recommendation anyways. Minho avoided his stare, looking around the spacious lawn of the golf-course they were at.

“I think I found the groom,” he held Thomas by the elbow to a short freckled man with a polite smile.

“We didn’t talk about drinks,” Thomas insisted.

“Hush,”

“I—“

“Hi. I’m Aris,” A man wearing a hat that’s sign said: ‘Groom-To-Be’ In Case U Weren’t Sure’ walked up to them. “You must be Thomas and Meen-ho. Did I get that right?” he asked Thomas’ very real boyfriend.

“Good attempt! More like Min..like minutes. And Ho..like Christmas I guess,” Minho dimpled as Aris smiled widely. “Thank you for the suite the way. It’s quite generous.”

“Oh please!” Aris waved it aside, “You’re visiting family and immediate cousins. I do truly appreciate having you here, Thomas. I’ve heard so much.”

“Congratulations on getting married. Well..about to,” Thomas stated awkwardly. “Knowing Teresa there’s a running theme?”

“Yeah. ‘Expensive looking’,” Aris laughed at some inside joke they weren’t privy to. “Teal and white with ‘hints of blue’” he imitated Teresa so well, Thomas laughed.

“Sounds like Teresa,” Thomas shook his head. “Did she show you her album?”

“What album?” Aris looked intrigued.

“You don’t know?” Thomas turned to Minho including him into the conversation so he wouldn’t feel left out. “Teresa’s been building her ideal wedding since she was a ten I think. I didn’t get it personally…but I thought she’d at least use *some* of it for her actual wedding?”

“Ohh that album. No that’s more of portfolio…I’m surprised she didn’t tell you. Teresa’s a wedding planner.”

“Oh.” There was an awkward pause and Thomas looked at Minho to save him.

“The venue’s gorgeous!” was the best thing Minho could come up with. It didn’t help.

“We’re not actually that close…she’s closer to my ex. That’s who she probably told,” Thomas hunched his shoulders inward and Minho reached for his hand, squeezing it in assurance; it gave him a boost, “Well, same town so it’s expected right?”

Aris gave them a calculated look, smile dropping a little. “So you’re Gally’s ex.” Aris looked across the lawn, “Best not tell her about the room then…”

“Yeah,” Thomas said softly. He knew it, he ju—

“I’m sorry. About what happened between you two. I’ve tried, but she’s too close to him, she doesn’t see it. I apologize on her behalf,” he offered. Thomas was shocked.

“I like you, man!” Minho slapped Aris on the shoulder, grinning.

“Oh thank God, approval means sooo much to me! “You won’t believe how many people mentioned I’m shorter than her—like I don’t have eyes!” Aris was laughing now.

“I hear you dude. I may be the Varsity Captain but everyone needs that.”

“You’re a Captain? Urgh didn’t need to know that. If I saw a picture of you before, I would have said no because you’re upstaging everyone here!”

“Thanks for saying that,” Minho smirked, “Assurance is always good,”

“Doubtful my ass! He knows he’s hot,” Thomas interjected.

Minho slid an arm around Thomas’ waist and leaned in to kiss his cheek. He kept doing that—he kept being so sweet and it was muddling Thomas’ head.

Was it real? Was anything they did real? Did it matter? He had Minho here with him, right? Minho was his boyfriend right now, so he was allowed to do boyfriend things. Making up his mind, Thomas leaned against Minho’s front, grabbed his hand and zoned out of the conversation.

Minho would cover for him. — “Are you serious?” Minho’s disbelief broke Thomas out of his daze. He looked up at his boyfriend, then followed his line of sight, his own jaw dropping.

“What—“

“You try telling Teresa, dressing up like a fairy at the welcome brunch is a bad idea,” Aris didn’t even turn around, “She’s lucky I love her.”

Thomas snorted, he couldn’t help it. “You’re good for her,” he mentioned, when Aris turned towards him inquiringly.

Aris nodded and then a mischievous glint appeared and Thomas sensed trouble, “So when are you two getting married?”

“Wha—“ Thomas was speechless. Were they that good? At pulling this off? Why would—

“Hey, I mean bringing your boyfriend to any type of family gathering, but a wedding especially. I mean. That’s serious.”

Thomas felt faint.

“Woah, woah slow down,” Minho cut in. “Do you know how long it took Thomas to even decide to bring me along? He made three pros and cons lists! Three.”

“The first one was messy, I could barely read my own writing. So it doesn’t count,” Thomas pouted. This actually happened. He had after all freaked out after telling his mom he had a date.

“That’s because you’re writing is like chicken scratch,” Minho rolled his eyes. “Hey where’s your drink?”

“I forgot it somewhere. And no.” Thomas pointed to Aris. He held up his index finger. “Education first. Parents, second,” he pointed to Minho. “Family chemistry, third. Then fourth, marriage. Right babe?” Thomas looked up at Minho who opened his mouth but no words came out.

Aris looked between them and snickered. “Maybe ease off on the drinks, okay Thomas?”

“I think he’s tired from our trip,” Minho found his voice again. He smiled apologetically as Thomas nodded along. “Is it okay if we leave early?”

“Yeah, no worries.” Aris waved him off with a grin, “Just be there tomorrow.”

“I went through a painful process of getting us outfits for your events, trust me we won’t miss it,” Minho assured him, leading Thomas away. Thomas was clingy all through the car ride but the moment they stepped into the elevator he sighed.

“Thank God!! It was so boring. Two times she could have approached us and instead re-routed!”

“Rerouted..really, Thomas? What are you, a directions app?” Minho said as the elevator dinged, signalling their floor.

“You know what I mean!! And did you hear what he said? That if he’d seen a picture of you, he would have said no.”

“It was a joke,” Minho shook his head, swiping the key card.

“No. He stressed Minho. She protested me coming…” Thomas sighed. “What am I even doing here?”

“Showing off. That’s what you’re doing here.” Thomas glanced at him just in time to see Minho take off his jacket, walking towards him. “You’re here to show that the past is the past. That it hasn’t slowed you down.”

Thomas’ heart was hammering against his ribcage, Minho was so close. Decently close, not crowding close but his back was against the door and he had a crush on this guy, he was allowed to feel..whatever.

“You’ve upgraded.” Minho continued. “That you’re happy. You are, aren’t you? At college. With me?” Thomas gave a small nod, still not looking directly at Minho. “Shall we order your precious airplane snack cravings now?”

“I’m never living that down, am I?” Thomas sighed.

“What kind of a boyfriend would I be to just let it go,” Minho laughed.

“A GOOD one!!!”

— A/N: Hullo Lovelies!! Happy Happy New Year!! This chapter has been on my mind for forever and I’m glad I was able to finally complete it. it became a 3,500+ monster, so I’m stopping this chapter here for now, but moooore shenanigans ahead!! Like hmm..sharing a bed?

#thominho #thominho fic #thominho au #fake/pretend relationship au #thominho fanfiction #thominho ff #thomas tmr #minho tmr #tmr thomas #tmr minho #the lies i tell myself

[sonicringbond]

Sonic Ring Bond: The Journey - Scene 52

Hopefully as everyone is reading this things have improved for me. My mental state has been a bit of mess at the time of writing this. I’ve had fears for the future of the AU and my ability to write it at all. While I have big plans and changes in store, it’s surprisingly difficult to stay enthusiastic. Strangely, only my primary villain seems to keep me motivated. But they won’t appear here, too an extent I suppose, but there is another villain who returns in this scene. I’ll let you see who now in...

    “Oh~! I see more flowers,” Blister began as she stepped through the Ring Gate and watched Zooey embrace Tails. She grew distracted a moment however as she took in the sight of the Ring Gate Beacon room. The ceiling of shifting blocks covered in glowing geometric patterns was almost mesmerizing. “Wow~. I have to get one of these on my ship.”

    “Maybe later,” Tails stated as he put his hands on Zooey’s shoulders and pushed her back, although as gently as he could. “Right now, we have to support Sonic. Zooey, can we map out the catacombs from the bridge.”

    “The Engineers and I already have a map in place,” Zooey confided in Tails, though still peeked around him curiously at Draw and Blister. Tails’ urgency pulled her back however as she felt his grip tighten on her shoulders. “We can use the same sonar method we used to map the city to keep track of Sonic and give him a heads up if anything goes sideways.”

    “That’s great,” Tails sighed relieved and started to hurry for the bridge, stopping only long enough to look back and ask Zooey another question. “Is it sensitive enough to pick out people?”

    “I don’t believe it is, but the catacombs should be large enough for the Tornado to fly through.”

~|~

    “Ho! An aeroplane of all things to best Claymore the Purple,” Claymore scoffed as he strode through brick halls that were open on one side to a cavernous hall beyond. “How the mage caused so much trouble with so small a force. No less he bought the time to take to the skies again. Ho! It is like that I would do well to remember the name Sonic the Hedgehog, unless I should stop him and my other guest all at once.”

    Weighing the thought of confronting two Ring Mage’s, Claymore chuckled nervously to himself. “Ho! My first real battle since waking and I must face two Ring Mages. Would that I could be joined in battle by my fellow knights.”

~|~

    “I don’t like it,” Rosy puffed up her cheeks, her problems multifold.

    “Well, you’ll just have to bear with it,” Sonic encouraged Rosy to not let the situation get to her. As he was sitting on top of her pressing her deeper into the cockpit of the Tornado, his words seemed uncaring. Though they were no meant to bet, he had his own problems controlling the biplane as he had one hand occupied holding onto Rosy’s tarot card case. “Just consider it for your own protection.”

    “I don’t need protected,” Rosy puffed her cheeks up even more. “Besides, if what Tails said is true, we won’t have time for me to be kept safe. We have to go stop Ix.”

    “You know who you’re talking to, right kid?” Sonic feigned being hurt. But Rosy was not feeling playful.

    Beyond the cockpit, even squished uncomfortably behind Sonic as she was, Rosy could see Yoluku in the sky, the upside-down sunset becoming a tighter and more sinister smile with each passing moment. A chill ran through Rosy looking at it, and she could swear even without her cards that she heard those same whispers.

    It’s fine. This is fun isn’t it? Enjoying a desperate adventure to save the world with your true love. How entertaining!

    “Hrm~!” Rosy emitted a low growl and puffed up her cheeks more. Not liking the voice in her head, she contorted herself as best she could behind Sonic and managed to get access to her wrist device.

    “Tai~ls!” Rosy whined into it. “Please tell me you have somewhere for us to go!”

    -I do!- Tails’ voice came back across the radio.

    ~I want to feel relieved while Tails guides Sonic through how he needs to fly the Tornado into the catacombs. It’s actually a lot of fun too, the way Sonic pilots his plane around the towers of the city and down into a chasm I didn’t know was in the city. Ooh~! It’s so exciting, but the situation isn’t good. Yolk is… I don’t know what Yolk is any more, but I have a really bad feeling.

     ~It’s not like me to have bad feelings, especially when Sonic is here. I know he’ll save the day, but something isn’t right. I just have a hard time believing Ix was seen so easily. He had me and everyone else fooled when I first met him, so to think he would be seen going into these oversized catacombs. It just doesn’t feel right. I wonder if this is supposed to be a trap. But for who? Did he even know I was going to be here? Ooh~! I don’t like this!~

    “We’re going on foot from here,” Sonic stated as he landed the Tornado on a small ledge, bringing the short flight to an end. As he left the plane, he worked he wrist device under his ow glove cuff. “I’ll relay back to you what I see Tails, but you’re going to have to be on your game to get us to where you think our uninvited party crasher is going.”

    -No problem, Sonic!- Tails’ voice chirped confidently across the wrist device’s radio. -Just watch out for traps.-

    “No worries there,” Sonic laughed. “In case you haven’t forgotten, I have a world class rascal here to take care of them for me.”

    “Soni~c!”

    ~Sonic’s ability to stay cheerful, even in the face of danger is always so inspiring and always helps me forget that people call me strange for doing the same. I can’t help but smile running with him through these ancient stone tunnels. Though it would be nice if there were less traps. But, well, a lot of traps that needed to be tripped were already tripped as Sonic and I ran past them. It’s hard to say running so fast, but they look more like they were disarmed rather than tripped. I shouldn’t be surprised, but… I kind of feel like it looks too familiar how they’ve been disarmed.~

~|~

    “Alright, how much further do you want to drag me into this place! It’s been nothing but trap after trap and no rewards worth the risk!"

    “Silence, treasure hunter! I must endure this humility and so will you.”

    “Yikes! Don’t lose your feathers old man!”

    “An old man who will outlive you, treasure hunter!”

    “Alright, alright! Just put my gun down. I’ll stop asking questions.”

    “Perhaps it would be best if you both focused.”

    “Yeah, well if I could I’d leave you both under a pile of rubble if I thought it’d do anything you talkative pile of rocks.”

    “Keep talking, treasure hunter. It fascinates me how your mouth is able to dig a grave.”

    “Yikes!”

    Watching the antics of Doctor Fukurokov, former leader of the now all but defunct Battle Kukku Armada, and Fang the Sniper, the troublesome treasure hunter who introduced Rosy to the world of adventure for his own gains, Ix would have sighed if his stone form possessed lungs. The two were anything but dignified. Though at least Fang put on no airs of false dignity like Doctor Fukurokov.

    Still, Ix’s plans required both, lest he had been rid of them ages ago having learned all he needed from them via a forced Ring Bond.

    “There will be time for you to torment the Child of Chaos yet, Child of the Heavens,” Ix at last interceded by walking between the owl and jerboa-wolf hybrid. His actions were meant to do more than break line of sight between them however, as he continued forward causing Fang to panic.

    “Watch where you’re walking you blasted statue! You’re going to get us all killed!”

    Fang’s excited shouting carried through the catacombs, straight into the twitching ear of a certain pink hedgehog girl. “Fang!”

    “Him again, huh?” Sonic sighed in response to Rosy’s exclamation.

    “Ooh~! Don’t be like that Sonic!” Rosy chided Sonic before suddenly picking her own route deeper into the catacombs.

    “Hey! Amy! That’s not the way Tails is–”

    “It sounds like Fang is with Ix!” Rosy interrupted Sonic and dashed off, following the sounds of the voices and her intuition.

    “This isn’t a great time Amy! AMY!”

    Left with little choice, Sonic took off after Rosy. It was going to be far from a difficult task to catch her either. For as much as she did her best to run at Sonic’s speed, her stumbling and general clumsiness was not the practiced and instinctual scrambling that Sonic performed that allowed him to run freely nigh anywhere. As large as the catacombs were, however, Fang did not possess Sonic’s speed. As he was the one searching for traps, he was the one controlling the pace at which Ix’s party progressed.

    “Yeesh, the weasel, the surprisingly resilient birdbrain, and the statue who really would have been better served staying in bed,” Sonic remarked as he skidded to a halt and saw the odd group. Or at least odd to Rosy who did not see the panic on Fang’s face as anything but a desperate plea for help. Naturally, Sonic saw it differently. “So how are you going to lie your way out of this one, weasel?”

    “Ho! Funny, Ring Mage,” the voice of Claymore boomed from beyond Ix. “I was aiming to ask you and the medium the same.”

    “And now, all of the players are present,” Ix remarked, his blue glowing eyes taking in the autogolem knight, the treasure hunter and pirate, and the two hedgehog’s who he silently deemed the most troublesome of all his obstacles.

Scene 52 · CLEARED Party Crashing, to be continued

-----

And there we go. Two scenes left to finish up Season 1. There’s a lot of ground to cover, and hopefully I’ll be able to have Sonic meet my main villain. It’s just there is so much to cover, and it’ll likely inflate the scenes. The smart thing to do would be to stretch it out, but I really want to end the season inline with the anime season. So, if everything went well after I wrote this, in one week Season 1 will be finished and Season 2 will be quite different in it’s handling. Please look forward to it!

-----

Special Thanks to Cutegirlmayra Story by @JoshTarwater/SonicFanJ Inspiring Song – Insatiable (From “Final Fantasy XIV”) - Vocaloid Version – Azina, Masayoshi Soken – Insatiable (From “Final Fantasy XIV”)

#sonic the hedgehog #sonic fan fiction #sonic au #sonic au series #sonic ring bond #the journey #classic amy #amy rose #rosy the rascal #au amy #amy redesign #miles tails prower #fang the sniper #doctor fukurokov #pir'oth ix #sonic oc #claymore the purple

[kunderdogs]

Take A Chance IV

Simon Dominic (AOMG) x Y/N (Reader) Genre: Romance / Angst Count: 2.4k+ Warnings: None Rating: Mature (suggestive, swearing) Summary: Who would’ve thought a one night stand with Simon D would turn into FWB? It only gets more complicated when you developed feelings, against your better judgement.

Chapter One. | Chapter Two. | Chapter Three. | Chapter Four. | Chapter Five. | Chapter Six. | Chapter Seven. |

Over the course of two weeks, you and Kiseok had a pretty good routine going on. He didn't come over every night, more like every other but he called and texted you nearly every chance he got.

At first you didn't think anything of it. He would ask you how your day was, if you ate and how you were feeling. Nothing crazy or out of pocket. It was innocent most of the time, and usually followed up by making plans to see you later on.

There was nothing you could do to stop your heart from bursting out of your chest each time you heard a small chime. Nicole had glared at you once when you two were on lunch and you scrambled over the table to reach your phone.

"Is that Lover Boy?" She teased. You were thankful that, out of all the nicknames she could've used - and she had a lot of them -, lover boy was the one she had stuck with. For now.

"What?" You feigned ignorance, "I have no idea what you're talking about. That's...Amazon. My package was delivered."

She smirked, sipping her iced tea, "I'm sure it was."

After a few days, Kiseok's texts became a little more...risky. You had no problem with sexting. When in the right setting, it was hot but he would send you wild shit while you're in the middle of a meeting, or when you're trying to finish up the last of your work before heading to see him. Usually you could play it off then retreat to the bathroom to respond but when he sent a voice recording of that damned deep voice of his, you stood from your desk and went to the stairs corridor to call and cuss him out for getting you bothered at eleven in the morning. You promised punishment as soon as you were off and Kiseok was, to say the least, intrigued. That night he was stunned at how different you could be if he gave you the reigns. Days after that, he still catches himself staring after you with amazement.

From that point on, he pretty much figured out that he could make you do nearly anything with a certain voice. It was a dangerous game that you two played. It only escalated when he coaxed you to touch yourself in the private bathroom at your company with him on FaceTime. You were lucky that you had finished in record-breaking time, before any of your coworkers (or God forbid, your boss) found out what exactly you were doing.

By the time the third week rolled around, Nicole had stopped hounding you for details of your hookups. Instead, she cautioned every now again. Typically, it was the same thing.

"Don't get too attached."

"He's a celebrity. You know how society is to foreigners dating celebs."

"What if he's a player? I just don't want you to get hurt."

While you appreciated her concern, you knew it was already too late not to get attached to him. Other than text you constantly, Kiseok did little things that had your head and heart confused.

On his bad days, he would complain to you about what happened and asked for your advice, if you had any to give, on the topic. He joked and teased you just like a friend would and willingly showed you pieces of his personal and work life as well. It was subtle at first - videos of him in the studio and then pictures of his friends when he was telling you a story about them. Each time, he would bring you food or have something delivered so you both got to learn each other's eating and drinking habits. You had seen him tipsy but he made it a point not to over do it in front of you.

Kiseok was also very considerate of you and your time, which you appreciated more than anything else. He didn't hound you if you didn't text back immediately and understood if you were swamped at the office or had to cancel that one time because the work would not be done until late in the night. He just told you to take care of yourself and later, had a pizza ordered to your job. It was around that time that you noticed you were falling a little too fast. You hadn’t admitted it out-loud, instead you chose to ignore those feelings completely. Hopefully, they would magically disappear into thin air.

You both didn't get into intimate details of your life. It was only by a weird stroke of luck that he hadn't found out about Cookie. She usually called right after you got off work anyway. Kiseok was busy during the day so when you went out to meet with your daughter and her father on your off days, he was in the middle of his own jam-packed schedule. Really, he was only available during the night time so you were more of a booty call than a FWB at this point. Neither of you had defined the "relationship" so far though, so it was hard to put a name to it right now.

It was Saturday when you woke up early and got dressed in casual clothes to go with Cookie to the zoo. Her, her father and his girlfriend were flying back to the US tonight so they wanted to do one last thing to fill the hours before the boring plane ride. You had cried last night as you thought of being without your mini-me for two whole months but his family hadn't seen her since she was much younger. You knew she would have fun, especially since his parents were dying to take her to Disneyland. You wished you could take an extended vacation and go with them but you had used most of your vacation days to take Cookie to Disney World for her birthday and that was only a couple of months ago.

Either way, you were sadder these past two days and thankfully Kiseok was swamped with an upcoming project so he hadn't been over in about four days. You didn't have to explain your blood-shot eyes.

You had so much fun at the zoo with your daughter that you didn't bother touching your phone. Your ex had taken most of the pictures for you all with promises to send them to you. It was around two in the afternoon when you four decided to go to a nearby burger joint and get some lunch. Cookie was shoving her face with chicken tenders so you decided to check your phone to pass the time. There were a few new gray message bubbles.

'Hey sexy thang ;)' 10:09AM

'This song better go double platinum with all the work I'm puttin in this bitch' 11:32AM

'Don't tell me you're asleep still?' 11:38AM

'I'm going to find a way to get your sexy ass as a video vixen one of these days' 11:47AM

'Argggh PD is calling me back. Text me when you wake up' 11:51AM

'We should be done by 2. Loco is taking me to some new place for food then I'm free. Can I swing by your place?' 11:52AM

Of course they were all from Kiseok. Not even your mother texted you as much as he did and although you liked the attention, right now you wanted to focus on Cookie since you won't physically see her for weeks after this. You frowned to yourself, feeling tears well up in your eyes for the millionth time today. You were going to miss her so much.

Composing yourself, you quickly typed a reply back. 'Hey. I'm up, just a little busy today. I won't be able to see you tonight. Maybe tomorrow if you're free?' 2:16PM

With that, you locked your phone and slid it in your pocket, once again forgetting about it soon after.

Your ex's girlfriend, Mia, nudged you slightly when she saw how pensive you were. "Hey, you okay? Was that work?"

Shaking your head, you took a breath, "No, I'm just gonna miss having my best friend around."

Cookie popped up, french fries sticking out of her mouth, "I'm gonna miss you too, mommy!" Her curly hair was pulled into two pony-tails, coils springing happily as she devoured the food in record-breaking time. "Don't cry! I'll make daddy buy you a Tiana dress so we can match!"

You laughed at the sight, tears pooling in your eyes again as her father pouted. "Ok, sweetie, I'd love to match with you."

About thirty minutes later, you all were getting ready to leave when Mia said she'd swing by and grab the rental car from the parking lot. They had to go to back to their hotel to pack. You all said your goodbyes, tears flowing freely between you and Mia. Cookie looked concerned for you as she wiped your tears, kissing your cheeks to reassure you.

Your ex hugged you and thanked you again, his eyes sparkling with happiness to have his precious daughter with him. You wished you could go with them once again as you watched their car drive off.

Back at home, you were greeted with a depressingly quiet apartment. It was cold and dark, something that was going to be a common occurrence for the coming weeks. Sniffling, you made your way to Cookie’s room, scanning her pink room with a blurring gaze. You were slowly walking around the room when you felt your phone ring.

It was Mia.

"Hello?" You called, wondering what could've happened in the last hour since you parted ways.

"Hey, Y/N, Cookie is freaking out because her father forgot to ask you to bring her Peach doll," Mia nearly shouted over the distraught crying in the background. You could hear your ex trying to console Cookie, to no avail. "Can you meet us at the airport with it?"

Searching the room, you spotted the Princess Peach doll on her bed and nearly sprinted out of the door. "I got it. When is your flight again?"

"Boarding is in another hour and a half."

Shit. You scrambled to snatch your keys and shoved the doll in your purse. "Okay, I'll leave now and meet you at departures, okay? Tell Cookie mommy's on the way."

You hung up and made a mad dash down to the parking garage. The airport was about a forty-five minute drive from your place, not including traffic or any other delays like the predictable Seoul rush hour.

At his own apartment, Simon was lounging on his couch, laptop on his chest as he worked. Loco was right next to him, on Face Time with the one and only Jay Park as he was at the airport.

"Have a safe flight," Loco was saying before Kiseok slid shoulder-to-shoulder with him.

"Get there and back in once piece, boss," the oldest one teased and Jay laughed. Unfortunately, he was distracted a little too long because he suddenly collided into a woman. The phone fell, face up and there were suddenly two faces on the screen.

His body guards reacted immediately and made sure the two were alright. Mildly interested, the two on the other side of the line watched on.

"I-I'm so sorry, oh God, I'm just in a rush." The woman's voice was so eerily familiar to Kiseok that he took a second to strain to hear it over the airport commotion.

Jay was off to the side, picking up his passport and other belongings that fell. "Nah, it's alright. Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, thank you. Again, I'm so sorry I wasn’t- Is this your phone?"

Without further ado, the woman picked up Jay's phone, and Kiseok felt his eyes bulge out of his skull when her face came into view.

What was Y/N doing in the airport? Loco didn't notice the other's tense reaction and simply waved at the stranger. You didn't seem to glance at the screen, yet they could easily notice your tear-stained cheeks, and just passed it back to the owner.

Over Jay reassuring her that it was fine for the third time, a loud and very male voice yelled. "Y/N! There you are!"

With another apology, you left the frame and turned towards the male voice. Jay watched the interaction for a second before continuing on his way, which was conveniently right past you. Loco was talking to the CEO like that didn't just happen when Kiseok saw you in the frame again. He was positive it was you this time around.

You wore that over-sized gray sweater that he thought was so cute on you, hair tied messily and hugging a handsome foreigner tightly. He pulled back from the hug and pushed back some pieces of your hair from your face before smiling, his lips moving. Staring up to him, you nodded, wiping your face with your sleeves. He brought you back to his chest, arms around your shoulders.

Involuntarily, Kiseok felt his jaw clench at the display of affection. His eyes tore from the phone quicker than he meant to, causing his junior to stare at him in confusion.

For the rest of the night, Loco was warily watching as the older man was fuming next to him. There was hardly any movement from his part and he was sure he was in a coma until Simon wiped out his phone, tapping it a few times before pressing it to his ear.

“Nayoung? It’s been a while. Are you free right now?”

Almost choking on his coke, Hyukwoo coughed. Why was Kiseok calling her, of all people? Once the call wrapped up, he nervously voiced his concern, “Hyung...Why are you calling her at this hour..?”

He didn’t get an immediate response, instead, Kiseok stood and glared with the power of a thousand suns at the TV in front of them.

“Am I not single? Can I not do what I want, with whoever I want, too?”

Without any further explanation, he stormed out of the apartment all together.

Hyukwoo stared after the front door in confusion. “Too?”

#simon dominic #simon dominic scenarios #aomg #aomg scenarios #jung kiseok #aomg simon d #simon d scenarios #jay park #loco #kunderdogs #kunderdogs scenario #take a chance #chapter four

[blackswaneuroparedux]

Anonymous asked: My granddaughter is 16 and in the us navy sea cadet program here in the USA. She hopes to become a naval aviator. She love reading military books. Any recommendations for her. Her mom says she reads anything military from equipment to history. I could use advice on a reading list to buy books for her. William Law

Thank you William for sending me this. It’s certainly one of the most interesting asks I’ve ever had the pleasure to reply to because it involves my love of Classics and also being a former military aviator.

So I put some thought into it because I can sense a kindred spirit in your grand daughter. She must be a remarkable young girl if she is as focused and committed as you say she is in terms of her life goals. If I may say so she is also blessed to have a grandfather like you who recognises the value of reading books to aid her and inspire her.

I have tried to confine myself to the narrow parameters of recommending books that can appeal to a precocious teenager that have a connection to naval and maritime themes (rather than the landed military) and have a general connection to women in the navy or as aviators. So the list is broken into personal memoirs, naval and maritime history, fictional works, and finally a select Classics list.

If you will indulge me I have included the Classics because I firmly believe a grounding in the Classics (from as early age as possible) is so culturally enriching and personally rewarding. In my experience the wisest military leaders and veterans I have ever had the privilege of knowing were grounded in the Classics.

To my mind Classic history, literature and poetry belongs in any library relating to maritime affairs. It provides a flavour of sea life, helping strategists understand this alien element. Just as important, it enlivens the topic. As you will know, ships and fleets do not make history; people do.

It is by no means a comprehensive list but something to start with. I’ve decided not to give you a bullet point laundry list but add some notes of my own because I found it fun to do - and in doing so I found myself looking back on my teenage years with equal icky amounts of embarrassment, regret, foolishness, fun, and joy. 

1. Personal memoirs

West with the Night by Beryl Markham

‘Poetry in flight’ best describes this 1942 memoir from aviatrix Beryl Markham of bush flying in Africa and long-distance flight, which includes her solo flight across the Atlantic. Lyrical and expressive her descriptions of the adventure of flying continue to inspire generations of women pilots, including myself when I learned to fly.

Markham was a colonial child and was raised by her father on a remote farm in Njoro, British East Africa (present-day Kenya). After a tomboyish childhood spent roaming the Kenyan wilds, she moved upcountry to Molo, becoming a racehorse trainer. There she saw her first plane and met British pilot Tom Black, who became her flight instructor and lover. Soon Markham earned her commercial pilot’s license, the first woman in Kenya to do so, and began to freelance as a bush pilot. Much of West With the Night concerns itself with this period in Markham’s life, detailing her flights in an Avro Avian biplane running supplies to remote outposts or scouting game for safaris.

Since airfields were essentially nonexistent in Africa at the time, Markham’s flights were particularly dangerous, punctuated with white-knuckle landings in forest clearings and open fields. In fact the dangers of African flying claimed the lives of a number of aviators. Markham eloquently describes her own search for a downed pilot: “Time and distance together slip smoothly past the tips of my wings without sound, without return, as I peer downward over the night-shadowed hollows of the Rift Valley and wonder if Woody, the lost pilot, could be there, a small pinpoint of hope and of hopelessness listening to the low, unconcerned song of the Avian - flying elsewhere.”

Markham’s memoir shies away from personal details - she is rumoured to have had an affair with an English prince - and straightforward chronology, instead focusing on vivid scenes gathered from a well-lived life. Rarely does one encounter such an evocative sense of a time and place as she creates. The heat and dust of Africa emanate from her prose. Anyone interested in aviation, in Africa, or in simply reading an absorbing book will find much to like in its pages. Ernest Hemingway, a friend and fellow safari enthusiast, wrote of Markham’s memoir, “I wish you would get it and read it because it really is a bloody wonderful book.”

It is a bloody brilliant book and it’s one of the books closest to my heart as it personally resonated with my nomadic life growing up in foreign countries where once the British empire made its mark.

I first read it on my great aunt’s Kenyan tea farm during the school holidays in England. I got into huge trouble for taking a treasured first edition - personally signed by Markham herself - from the library of my great aunt without permission. My great aunt - not an easy woman to get on with given her questionable eccentricities - wrote a stern letter to the head teacher of my girls’ boardng school in England that the schools standards and moral Christian teachings must be in terminal decline if girls were encouraged to pilfer books willy nilly from other people’s bookshelves and thus she would not - as an alum herself - be donating any more money to the school. It was one more sorry blot in my next school report.

Fly Girls: How Five Daring Women Defied All Odds and Made Aviation History by Keith O’Brien

For pioneering pilots of the 1920s and 1930s, the challenges were enormous. For women it was even more daunting. In this marvellous history, Keith O’Brien recounts the early years of aviation through a generation of American female pilots who carved out a place for themselves and their sisterhood. Despite the sensation they created, each “went missing in her own way.” This is the inspiring untold story of five women from very different walks of life - including a New York socialite, an Oakland saleswoman, a Florida dentist’s secretary and a Boston social worker - who fought and competed against men in the  high-stakes national air races of the 1920s and 1930s — and won.

Between the world wars, no sport was more popular, or more dangerous, than airplane racing. Thousands of fans flocked to multi-day events, and cities vied with one another to host them. The pilots themselves were hailed as dashing heroes who cheerfully stared death in the face. Well, the men were hailed. Female pilots were more often ridiculed than praised for what the press portrayed as silly efforts to horn in on a manly and deadly pursuit. The derisive press dubbed the first women’s national air race “The Powder Puff Derby.”

It’s a brisk, spirited history of early aviation focused on 5 irrepressible women. Florence Klingensmith, a high-school dropout who worked for a dry cleaner in Fargo, North Dakota, and who trained as a mechanic so she could learn planes inside and out but whose first aviation job was as a stunt girl, standing on a wing in her bathing suit. Louise McPhetridge Thaden a girl who grew up as a tomboy and later became the mother of two young kids who got her start selling coal in Wichita. Ruth Elder, an Alabama divorcee was determined to be the first woman to fly across the Atlantic. Amelia Earhart was of course the most famous, but not necessarily the most skilled. Ruth Nichols who chafed at the constraints of her blue-blood family's expectations of marrying into wealth and into high society.

In 1928, when women managed to get jobs in other male dominated fields, fewer than 12 had a pilot’s license, and those ambitious for prizes and recognition faced entrenched sexism from the men who ran air races, backed fliers, and financed the purchase of planes. They decided to organise: “For our own protection,” one of them said, “we must learn to think for ourselves, and do as much work as possible on our planes.” Although sometimes rivals in the air, they forged strong friendships and offered one another unabated encouragement. O’Brien vividly recounts the dangers of early flight: In shockingly rickety planes, pilots sat in open cockpits, often blinded by ice pellets or engine smoke; instruments were unreliable, if they worked at all; sudden changes in weather could be life threatening. Fliers regularly emerged from their planes covered in dust and grease. Crashes were common, with planes bursting into flames; but risking injury and even death failed to dampen the women’s passion to fly. And yet their bravery was only scoffed at by male prejudice. Iconic  oilman Erle Halliburton believed, “Women are lacking in certain qualities that men possess.” Florence Klingensmith’s crash incited a debate about allowing menstruating women to fly.

And yet these women still took off in wooden crates loaded with gasoline. They flew over mountains, deserts and seas without radar or even radios. When they came down, they knew that their landings might be their last. But together, they fought for the chance to race against the men - and in 1936 one of them would triumph in the toughest race of all. And When Louise Thaden became the first woman to win a national race, even the great Charles Lindbergh fell curiously silent.

O'Brien nicely weaves together the stories of these five remarkable women in the spirit of Tom Wolfe’s The Right Stuff who broke the glass ceiling to achieve greatness.

Thoughts of a Philosophical Fighter Pilot by James Stockdale

Thoughts on issues of character, leadership, integrity, personal and public virtue, and ethics, the selections in this volume converge around the central theme of how man can rise with dignity to prevail in the face of adversity- lessons just as valid for the challenges of present-day life as they were for the author’s Vietnam experience.Vice Admiral James Stockdale, a senior research fellow at the Hoover Institution, served in the U.S. Navy from 1947 to 1979, beginning as a test pilot and instructor at Patuxent River, Maryland, and spending two years as a graduate student at Stanford University. He became a fighter pilot and was shot down on his second combat tour over North Vietnam, becoming a prisoner of war for eight years, four in solitary confinement. The highest-ranking naval officer held during the Vietnam War, he was tortured fifteen times and put in leg irons for two years. It’s a book that makes you think how much character is important in good at anything, especially being a thoughtful and wise leader in the heat of battle.

Make Your Bed: Little Things That Can Change Your Life And Maybe The World by Admiral William H. McRaven   On May 17, 2014, Admiral William H. McRaven addressed the graduating class of the University of Texas at Austin on their Commencement day. Taking inspiration from the university's slogan, "What starts here changes the world," he shared the ten principles he learned during Navy Seal training that helped him overcome challenges not only in his training and long Naval career, but also throughout his life; and he explained how anyone can use these basic lessons to change themselves-and the world-for the better.

Admiral McRaven's original speech went viral with over 10 million views.

Building on the core tenets laid out in his speech, McRaven now recounts tales from his own life and from those of people he encountered during his military service who dealt with hardship and made tough decisions with determination, compassion, honour, and courage.

The book is told with great humility and optimism. It provides simple wisdom, practical advice, and words of encouragement that will inspire readers to achieve more, even in life's darkest moments.

Service: A Navy SEAL at War by Marcus Luttrell with James D. Hornfischer 

Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell is more known for his other famous best seller Lone Survivor but this one I think is also a thrilling war story, Service is above all a profoundly moving tribute to the warrior brotherhood, to the belief that nobody goes it alone, and no one will be left behind. Luttrell returned from his star-crossed mission in Afghanistan with his bones shattered and his heart broken. So many had given their lives to save him-and he would have readily done the same for them. As he recuperated, he wondered why he and others, from America's founding to today, had been willing to sacrifice everything - including themselves-for the sake of family, nation, and freedom.

In Service, we follow Marcus Luttrell to Iraq, where he returns to the battlefield as a member of SEAL Team 5 to help take on the most dangerous city in the world: Ramadi, the capital of war-torn Al Anbar Province. There, in six months of high-intensity urban combat, he would be part of what has been called the greatest victory in the history of US Special Operations forces. We also return to Afghanistan and Operation Redwing, where Luttrell offers powerful new details about his miraculous rescue.

Throughout, he reflects on what it really means to take on a higher calling, about the men he's seen lose their lives for their country, and the legacy of those who came and bled before. I did rub shoulders with the US special forces community out on my time in Afghanistan and whilst their public image deifies them I found them to be funny, pranksters, humble, brave, and down to earth beer guzzling hogs who cheerfully cheat at cards.

The Spirit of St. Louis by Charles A. Lindbergh

Being one of the classics in aviation history, this well written book is an epic aviator’s adventure tale of all time. Charles Lindbergh is best known for its famous nonstop flight from New York to Paris in 1927 as it changed the history of aviation. “The Spirit of St. Louis” takes the reader on an extraordinary trans-Atlantic journey in a single-engine plane. As well as provides insight into the early history of American aviation and includes some great fuel conservation tips!

20 Hrs. 40 mins by Amelia Earhart

How can any woman pilot not be inspired by Amelia Earhart?  Earhart's first transatlantic flight of June 1928 during which she flew as a passenger accompanying pilot Wilmer Stultz and co-pilot Louis Gordon. The team departed from Trepassey Harbor, Newfoundland, in a Fokker F.VIIb/3m on 17 June 1928, landing at Pwll near Burry Port, South Wales, exactly 20 hours and 40 minutes later. The book is an interesting read but I much prefer her other book written in 1932 The Fun Of It. The book is Earhart's account of her growing obsession with flying, the final chapter of which is a last minute addition chronicling her historic solo transatlantic flight of 1932. The work contains the mini-record of Earhart's international broadcast from London on 22 May 1932. Earhart set out from Harbour Grace, Newfoundland on 20 May 1932. After a flight lasting 14 hours and 56 minutes Earhart landed in a pasture at Culmore, north of Derry, Northern Ireland. The work also includes a list of other works on aviation written by women, emblematic of Earhart's desire to promote women aviators.

2. Naval and military history

The U.S. Navy: A Concise History by Craig L Symonds

Symonds’s The U.S. Navy: A Concise History is a fantastic book from one of the doyennes of US naval history. I cannot think of any other work on the US Navy that provides such a thorough overview of American naval policy, navy combat operations, leadership, technology, and culture in such a succinct manner. This book is perfect for any reader - young or old -  just wading into the waters of naval history and not knowing where to start, or for someone who wishes to learn a little bit about each era of the navy, from its founding to its modern-day mission and challenges.

His other distinguished works are more in depth - mostly about the Second World War such as the Battle of Midway and the Normandy landings - but this is a good introduction to his magisterial books. His latest book came out in 2019 called World War II at Sea: A Global History. I have not read this yet but from others who have they say it is a masterful overview of the war at sea.

Six Frigates: The Epic History of the Founding of the U.S. Navy by Ian W. Toll

Before the ink was dry on the U.S. Constitution, the establishment of a permanent military became the most divisive issue facing the new government. The founders - particularly Jefferson, Madison, and Adams - debated fiercely. Would a standing army be the thin end of dictatorship? Would a navy protect from pirates or drain the treasury and provoke hostility? Britain alone had hundreds of powerful warships.

From the decision to build six heavy frigates, through the cliff-hanger campaign against Tripoli, to the war that shook the world in 1812, Ian W. Toll tells this grand tale with the political insight of Founding Brothers and the narrative flair of Patrick O’Brian.

The Pursuit of Victory: The Life and Achievement of Horatio Nelson by Roger Knight

The starting point of Roger Knight’s magnificent new biography is to explain how Nelson achieved such extraordinary success. Knight places him firmly in the context of the Royal Navy at the time. He analyses Nelson’s more obvious qualities, his leadership strengths and his coolness and certainty in battle, and also explores his strategic grasp, the condition of his ships, the skill of his seamen and his relationships with the officers around him – including those who could hardly be called friendly.

This biography takes a shrewd and sober look at Nelson’s status as a hero and demolishes many of the myths that were so carefully established by the early authors, and repeated by their modern successors.

While always giving Nelson his due, Knight never glosses over the character flaws of his heroic subject. Nelson is seen essentially as a "driven" personality, craving distinction in an age increasingly coloured by notions of patriotic heroism, traceable back to the romantic (and entirely unrealistic) depiction of the youthful General James Wolfe dying picturesquely at the moment of victory in 1759. Nor does Knight take Nelson's side in dealing with that discreditable phase in 1798-99, when he is influenced, much for the worse, by his burgeoning involvement with Lady Hamilton at Naples and Palermo. Knight accepts that this interlude has left an indelible stain on Nelson's naval and personal record. But he traces the largely destructive course of Nelson's passion for Emma with appropriate sensitivity.

Nelson was a shrewd political operator who charmed and impressed political leaders and whose advancement was helped by the relatively weak generation of admirals above him. He was a difficult subordinate, only happy when completely in command, and capable of great ruthlessness. Yes he was flawed, but Nelson's flaws, including his earlier petulance in dealing with higher naval authority - only brought fully under control towards the end of his career - pale before his remarkable strengths. His outstanding physical and moral courage and his inspired handling of officers and men are repeatedly and effectively illustrated.

1812: The Navy’s War by George C. Daughan

When war broke out between Britain and the United States in 1812, America’s prospects looked dismal. British naval aggression made it clear that the ocean would be the war’s primary battlefield - but America’s navy, only twenty ships strong, faced a practiced British fleet of more than a thousand men-of-war.

Still, through a combination of nautical deftness and sheer bravado, a handful of heroic captains and their stalwart crews managed to turn the tide of the war, besting the haughty skippers of the mighty Royal Navy and cementing America’s newly won independence.

In 1812: The Navy’s War, award-winning naval historian George C. Daughan draws on a wealth of archival research to tell the amazing story of this tiny, battle tested team of Americans and their improbable yet pivotal victories. Daughan thrillingly details the pitched naval battles that shaped the war, and shows how these clashes proved the navy’s vital role in preserving the nation’s interests and independence. This well written history is the first complete account in more than a century of how the U.S. Navy rescued the fledgling nation and secured America’s future. Daughan’s prose is first-rate, and his rousing accounts of battles at sea will certainly appeal to a popular audience. 

I was given this book as a tongue in cheek gift from an American friend who was an ex-US Marine officer with tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. He was obviously trying to rib me as good friends do. But I really did enjoy this book.

Among the most interesting insights is Daughan’s judgment on the effect of the American invasion attempts in Canada; all ultimately defeated. Demanded by enthusiastic War Hawks unencumbered by knowledge or experience who predicted that the Canadians would flock to U.S. banners, these incursions became the groundwork for a unified Iraq Canada - Ha!

What I liked was the fact that Daughan places the war in its crucial European context, explaining in detail how the course of the Napoleonic Wars shaped British and American decision making and emphasising the North American theatre’s secondary status to the European conflict. While they often verbally castigated Napoleon’s imperial ambitions, American leaders were in the uncomfortable position of needing Napoleon to keep winning while they fought Britain, and his defeat and (first) exile to Elba prompted an immediate scramble to negotiate a settlement. Despite its significance, few historians have bothered to systematically place the War of 1812 in the context of the Napoleonic Wars, and Daughan’s book does exactly that.

Empires of the Seas: The Siege of Malta, The Battle of Lepanto, and the Contest for the Centre of the World by Roger Crowley

In 1521, Suleiman the Magnificent, the great Muslim ruler of the Ottoman Empire, dispatched an invasion fleet to the Christian island of Rhodes. This would prove to be the opening shot in an epic clash between rival empires and faiths for control of the Mediterranean and the center of the world.

In Empires of the Sea, acclaimed historian Roger Crowley has written a thrilling account of this brutal decades-long battle between Christendom and Islam for the soul of Europe, a fast-paced tale of spiralling intensity that ranges from Istanbul to the Gates of Gibraltar.

Crowley conjures up a wild cast of pirates, crusaders, and religious warriors struggling for supremacy and survival in a tale of slavery and galley warfare, desperate bravery and utter brutality.

Empires of the Sea is a story of extraordinary colour and incident, and provides a crucial context for our own clash of civilisations.

One hundred Days: The Memoirs of the Falklands Battle Group Commander by Admiral Sandy Woodward RN

Written by the man who masterminded the British victory in the Falklands, this engrossing memoir chronicles events in the spring of 1982 following Argentina’s takeover of the South Atlantic islands. Admiral Sandy Woodward, a brilliant military tactician, presents a complete picture of the British side of the battle. From the defeat of the Argentine air forces to the sinking of the Belgrano and the daring amphibious landing at Carlos Water, his inside story offers a revealing account of the Royal Navy’s successes and failures.

At times reflective and personal, Woodward imparts his perceptions, fears, and reactions to seemingly disastrous events. He also reveals the steely logic he was famous for as he explains naval strategy and planning. His eyewitness accounts of the sinking of HMS Sheffield and the Battle of Bomb Alley are memorable.

Many in Whitehall and the armed forces considered Woodward the cleverest man in the navy. French newspapers called him “Nelson.” Margaret Thatcher said he was precisely the right man to fight the world’s first computer war. Without question, the admiral’s memoir makes a significant addition to the official record.

At the same time it provides readers with a vivid portrayal of the world of modern naval warfare, where equipment is of astonishing sophistication but the margins for human courage and error are as wide as in the days of Nelson.

3. Fiction

The Caine Mutiny by Herman Wouk

The majestic novel that inspired the classic Hollywood film The Caine Mutiny with Humphrey Bogart. Herman Wouk's boldly dramatic, brilliantly entertaining novel of life-and mutiny-on a US Navy warship in the Pacific theatre was immediately embraced, upon its original publication in 1951, as one of the first serious works of American fiction to grapple with the moral complexities and the human consequences of World War II.

The Sand Pebbles by Richard McKenna

It’s a fantastic novel that inspired a Steve McQueen film of the same name. Watch the movie if you haven’t, but read the book. It’s impossible to do a story of this sweep justice in two hours, even with the great McQueen starring.

Naval friends tell me The Sand Pebbles has been a fixture on the US Chief of Naval Operations’ Professional development reading list, and thus all mariners should be encouraged to read. And it’s easy to tell why. Most American seafarers will interact with the Far East in this age of the pivot, as indeed they have for decades.

Told through the eyes of a junior enlisted man, The Sand Pebbles recounts the deeds of the crew of the fictional U.S. Navy gunboat San Pablo during the turbulent 1920s, when various parties were vying for supremacy following the overthrow of China’s Qing Dynasty.

It’s a book about the mutual fascination, and sometimes repulsion, between Americans and Chinese; the tension between American missionaries and the sailors entrusted with protecting them; and China’s descent into chaos following the collapse of dynastic rule.

How do you separate fact from fiction or myth when writing a historical novel. Wisely, McKenna lets the reader to conclude there’s an element of myth to all accounts of history. Causality - what factors brought about historical events - is in the eye of the beholder. The best an author of historical fiction can do, then, is devote ample space to all contending myths and leave it up to readers to judge. Sailors, missionaries, and ordinary Chinese get their say in his pages, to illuminating effect. Authors report, the readers decide.

Ghost Fleet: A Novel of the Next World War by P.W. Singer and August Cole 

The United States, China, and Russia eye each other across a twenty-first century version of the Cold War, which suddenly heats up at sea, on land, in the air, in outer space, and in cyberspace. The fighting involves everything from stealthy robotic–drone strikes to old warships from the navy’s “ghost fleet.” Fighter pilots unleash a Pearl Harbor-style attack; American veterans become low-tech insurgents; teenage hackers battle in digital playgrounds; Silicon Valley billionaires mobilise for cyber-war; and a serial killer carries out her own vendetta. Ultimately, victory will depend on blending the lessons of the past with the weapons of the future.

The book’s title, Ghost Fleet, comes from an expression used in the U.S. Navy that refers to partially or fully decommissioned ships kept in reserve for potential use in future conflict. These ships, as one might imagine, are older and naturally less technologically sophisticated than their modern counterparts. Singer and Cole cleverly use this concept, retiring older ships and weaponry in favour of newer versions with higher technological integration, to illustrate a key motif in the book: while America’s newest generation of warfighting machinery and gear is capable of inflicting greater levels of punishment, it is also vulnerable to foreign threats in ways that its predecessors were not. The multi-billion dollar, next generation F-35 aircraft, for instance, is rendered powerless after it is revealed that Chinese microprocessor manufacturers had implanted malicious code into products intended for the jet.

I’m a huge sucker for intelligently written thrillers and I found Ghost Fleet to be a page-turning speculative thriller in the spirit of Tom Clancy’s The Hunt for Red October. The debut novel by two leading experts on the cutting edge of national security, it is unique in that every trend and technology featured in the novel - no matter how sci-fi it may seem - is real, or could be soon.

Master and Commander by Patrick O’Brian (Aubery-Maturin series)

This, the first of twenty in the splendid series of the famous Jack Aubrey novels, establishes the friendship between Captain Jack Aubrey, R.N., and Stephen Maturin, ship’s Irish-Catalan surgeon and intelligence agent, against a thrilling backdrop of the Napoleonic wars. Details of a life aboard a man-of-war in Nelson’s navy are faultlessly rendered: the conversational idiom of the officers in the ward room and the men on the lower deck, the food, the floggings, the mysteries of the wind and the rigging, and the roar of broadsides as the great ships close in battle.

I have the first editions of some of the series and I have treasured them ever since I read them as a teenager. I felt like stowing away on the first ship I could find in Plymouth. The Hollywood film version by Peter Weir with Russell Crowe as Jack Aubrey is a masterful swashbuckling film and perhaps a delightful way into the deeper riches of the other novels in the epic series.

Beat to Quarters by C.S. Forester (Horatio Hornblower series)

Horatio Hornblower remains for many the best known and most loved of these British naval heroes of Napoleonic Age. In ten books Forester recounts Hornblower's rise from midshipman to admiral, during the British navy's confrontation with Revolutionary and Napoleonic France. For readers, the books work as a window into history because of the outstanding details that appear in these books. Through this singular series, according to critics, C.S. Forrester - like Patrick O’Brian - has contributed his own uniqueness to the confluence of fact and fiction.

They are above all ‘ripping good yarns’, with fast-moving plots, stirring battle scenes, lively dialogue, and vivid characters, but they also offer a picture of the British navy during the period; and Hornblower himself is an original and memorable literary creation as fictionally charismatic as James Bond.

Young Hornblower is introspective, morose, self-doubting. He is crippled by the fear that he does not have the qualities to  command other men. He is harder on himself than anyone else would dare to be – and is, simply, one of the most complete creations of character in fiction. This is why many teenagers love Hornblower because they can see something of themselves in his adventures from from chronic self-doubt to soaring swashbuckling self-confidence. Hornblower is much more relatable than the brooding seasoned Jack Aubrey for instance.

I recommend reading the books in the order they were written rather than chronologically. In the first written novel, Beat to Quarters (also published as The Happy Return), we find Hornblower in command of a frigate in lonely Pacific waters off Spanish Central America. He has to deal with a mad revolutionary, fight single-ship duels with a larger vessel, and cope with Lady Barbara Wellesley (who provides a romantic interest to the series).

In A Ship of the Line Hornblower is sent into the Mediterranean, where he wreaks havoc on French coastal communications before plunging into a battle against the odds. Flying Colours is mostly set in France: in it Hornblower escapes captivity and returns to England a hero. In The Commodore he is sent with a squadron into the Baltic, where he has to cope with the complex politics of the region as well as helping with the siege of Riga. And in Lord Hornblower a mutiny leads to involvement with the fall of Napoleon — and brings him to prison and a death sentence during the Hundred Days. Forester then went back and described Hornblower's earlier career. Lieutenant Hornblower is perhaps my favourite of the Hornblower books.

Piece of cake by Derek Robinson

It’s an epic tome covering the opening twelve months of World War Two, from the phony war in France to the hasty retreat back across the Channel and then the valiant stand against the might of the Luftwaffe in what became known as the Battle of Britain.

The book follows the exploits of the fictional Hornet squadron and its members, a group of men who work hard and play harder. Though fiction, this immaculately researched novel based on an RAF Hurricane fighter squadron in 1940 highlights the ill-preparedness of Britain in the early stages of Word War Two.

Its British black humour is on full throttle with its nuanced observations of class politics and institutional ineptness. The manic misfits, heroes and bullies of Hornet Squadron discover that aerial combat is nothing like what they have been trained for. The writing sears the reader’s brain and produces some of the finest writing on the air war ever put to paper.

Be warned, though, this story isn’t about one specific character or ‘hero’. Indeed, just as you get to know a pilot, they are either chopped or killed; such is the nature of war in the air. Even though this is initially frustrating, you soon come to realise just how authentic Robinson’s storytelling is, and that this is exactly what it must have been like to be part of an RAF squadron on active service, never knowing who of your comrades would be alive from day to day. And, although the war proper for Hornet squadron doesn’t start until late in the book, when it does come the rendition of the dogfights in the air are so gripping that you’ll feel like you are actually there, sat next to the pilot in his cramped Hurricane cockpit, as Messerschmitt 109s scream by spitting death from all points of the compass.

All in all, this is a thoroughly entertaining (and educational) novel, and a must read for anyone interested in the RAF and how so few stood against so many. It has the dark humour of Heller’s Catch 22 but with a very distinctive British humour that can be lost on other foreigners. I recommend it as a honest and healthy antidote to anyone thinking of all pilots and the brave deeds they do in some deified light when in fact they are human and flawed as anyone else. Anyone who’s ever been a pilot will recognise some archetype in their own real life in this darkly comic British novel.

Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad

Lord Jim has it all. It's not just a novel of the sea but a work of moral philosophy.

Night Flight by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

In my humble opinion the greatest aviation fiction book ever written. It made the celebrated French aviator famous and Antoine de Saint-Exupery would go on to write the timeless classic The Little Prince.

Saint-Exupéry, though born into French nobility was always the odd one out as a child. Portly but jovial, he had bags of courage and curiosity to match his thirst for adventure and travel. He doggedly pursued his dream of becoming a pioneering pilot. In the 1930s he was an airline pilot who flew the north African and south Atlantic mail routes. During the long lonely hours in the cockpit he had enough time to accumulate experience and reflections which could be fit into Night Flight.

The novel itself narrates the terrifying story of Fabien, a pilot who conducted night mail planes, from Patagonia, Chile, and Paraguay to Argentina in the early days of commercial aviation when it was dangerous and pilots died often in horrendous accidents. The book romantically captures the danger and loneliness of these early commercial pilots, blazing routes in the days before radar, GPS and jet engines.

Night Flight is a good gateway into his other aviation themed books. Each of them are magical in capturing the austere feelings of seeing the world and its landscapes from above. Southern Mail, The Aviator, and Wind, Sand and Stars are fantastic reads.

Night Flight is inspiring for every pilot by sharing a unique magic of piloting an airplane.

These books changed my life as it inspired me to fly as a late teen. I still re-read Saint-Exupery’s writings sometimes as a way to tap into that youthful joy of discovering the wonders of flying a plane and when the impossible was only limited by your will and imagination. I cannot recommend his novels highly enough.

4. Classical

The Odyssey by Homer translated by Emily Wilson

Homer should the read at any age and for all seasons. I’ve chosen Emily Wilson’s recent translation because it’s good and not just because her publication was billed as the first woman to ever translate Homer. Wilson is an Oxford educated Classicist now a professor of Classics at Pennsylvania. Every discussion of Emily Wilson’s Odyssey is prefaced with the fact that hers is the first English translation of the poem by a woman, but it’s worth noting that Caroline Alexander’s Iliad (Ecco 2015) was also published as the first English translation by a woman to much less hoopla (to say nothing of Sarah Ruden’s Aeneid, Yale University Press 2009).

While a woman translating Homer’s epic is certainly a huge milestone, Wilson’s interpretation is a radical, fascinating achievement regardless of her gender. Disregard the marketing hype and the Wilson’s translation of Odysseus’ epic sea voyage home still stands tall for its fast paced narrative.

Compared with her predecessors’, Wilson’s Odyssey feels more readable, more alive: the diction, with some exceptions discussed below, is straightforward, and the lines are short. The effect is to turn the Odyssey into a quick-paced page turner, an experience I’d never had reading this epic poem in translation.

The War of the Peloponnesians and the Athenians by Thucydides translated by Jeremy Mynott

This is the classic treatise about what is essentially rowboats and spears of one of the most important and defining wars of Western civilisation. A long story of people killing one another, cynically justifying their cruelties in pursuit of power, making gross, stupid and fatal miscalculations, in a world devoid of justice. It's a long, drawn out tragedy without any redeeming or uplifting catharsis. If you are not already an extreme pessimist, you will lose all illusions about the inherent goodness of human beings and the possibility of influencing the course of events for the better after you read this book. You will be sadder but you will be wiser. Thucydides called his account of two decades of war between Athens and Sparta “a possession for all time,” and indeed it is the first and still most famous work in the Western historical tradition.

People look at me in a shocked way when I tell them that you can learn 90 percent of what you need to know about politics and war from Thucydides. Maritime strategy falls among the remaining 10 percent. If you want to read about the making of strategy, Clausewitz & Co. are your go-to works. If you want big thoughts about armed strife pitting a land against a sea power, Thucydides is your man. Considered essential reading for generals, admirals, statesmen, and liberally educated citizens for more than 2,000 years, The Peloponnesian War is a mine of military, naval, moral, political, and philosophical wisdom.

Finding the best and most accessible translation (and commentary) is key otherwise you risk putting off the novice reader (especially the young) from ever taking an interest in the Classical world e.g. I would never give the Thomas Hobbes translation to anyone who is easily bored or is impatient with old English. There are many good modern translations to choose from and here you have Strassler, Blanco, and Lattimore that are more used in America. Richard Crawley’s is the most popular but also the least accurate.

My own personal recommendation would be to go for Jeremy Mynott’s 2013 work which he titled The War of the Peloponnesians and the Athenians. Mynott was a former publishing head at Cambridge University Press and emeritus fellow of Wolfson College, Cambridge, as well as a leading expert on birds and natural history. Mynott’s aim is to re-introduce Thucydides to the reader in his “proper cultural and historical context”, and to strip back the “anachronistic concepts derived from later developments and theories”. Hence the name of the book: The War of the Peloponnesians and the Athenians, not, as it is usually called today, The Peloponnesian War.

But what is in a name? In this case, a great deal, since it contains Mynott’s mission statement in miniature. He has dropped the conventional name for the work, for which he correctly says there is no evidence from antiquity, in favour of a less one-sided title derived from Thucydides’s opening sentence. This is just one example of the accretions which Mynott’s edition aims to remove, so that the reader can come closer to being able to appreciate Thucydides’s work as it might have been received in classical Greece. In my humble opinion it is a minor miracle that Mynott has achieved in conveying in modern English the literary qualities of this most political of ancient historians.

The Peloponnesian War by Donald Kagan

I’m deliberating ignoring Victor David Hanson’s book on the Peloponnesian War (A War Like No Other) not because it’s not good (because it is in parts) but because I prefer Prof. Donald Kagan’s book.  Professor Kagan at Yale is one of the foremost scholars of Ancient Greek history. He has written a concise but thorough history of the Peloponnesian War for a general audience It's not the least bit dry for those with an interest in ancient history. The book’s an easy read. Kagan’s writing style is clear and straightforward.

Like any scholar worth his salt, Kagan is conversant with the scholarly consensus, with which he is for the most part in step, though he occasionally offers alternative scenarios. Much of the book is simply riveting. Like when the Spartan general Brasidas retakes Amphipolis, or the naval battle fought late in the war for control of the Hellespont. Woven throughout is the longer story of the Athenian turncoat, Alcibiades. Kagan’s analysis of the tactics and strategy of the conflict always seems on target. Interestingly, despite their reputations, the aristocratic Spartans usually come across as vacillating and indecisive while the democratic Athenians are aggressive and usually seize opportunity with successful results. Kagan refrains from drawing analogies to modern politics, although there’s certainly plenty of opportunity for it.

Professor Kagan preceded this one-volume history with a four-volume history of the war that took him around 20 years to write. That four volume series is a much more detailed and academic consideration of political motives and military strategy. But with this single volume, Kagan was able to produce a fast-moving tale, full of incident and colourful description easily readable for the general reader.  

Lords of the Sea by John R. Hale

This book spans the history of the Athenian navy, starting with its founder, Themistocles, and carrying the story through to the fall of Athens - its real fall at the hands of Alexander the Great, not the brief unpleasantness at Spartan hands - in 4th century B.C. Along the way Hale furnishes a wealth of details about naval warfare in classical antiquity. Lords of the Sea profiles Athens' seafaring culture fascinatingly, probing subjects on which Thucydides remains silent. An invaluable companion to Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War, and a rollicking read to boot.

Meditations by Marcus Aurelius

Meditations is a series of personal writings by Marcus Aurelius, Roman Emperor 161–180 CE, setting forth his ideas on Stoic philosophy. Marcus Aurelius wrote the 12 books of the Meditations in Koine Greek as a source for his own guidance and self-improvement. It is possible that large portions of the work were written at Sirmium, where he spent much time planning military campaigns from 170 to 180. Some of it was written while he was positioned at Aquincum on campaign in Pannonia, because internal notes tell us that the second book was written when he was campaigning against the Quadi on the river Granova (modern-day Hron) and the third book was written at Carnuntum.

It is not clear that he ever intended the writings to be published, so the title Meditations is but one of several commonly assigned to the collection. These writings take the form of quotations varying in length from one sentence to long paragraphs.

When US Vice-Admiral. James Stockdale was shot down and became a prisoner of war in Vietnam, he attributed his survival to studying stoic philosophies, particularly Marcus Aurelius’ “Meditations.” Aurelius, the Roman emperor, wrote his simple rules for living by candlelight and they have been a source of strength for the thoughtful man of arms or the cultured citizen ever since. I also think teenagers would gain a lot from reading Meditations than endure reading angst-ridden nihilism of many tacky teenage books out there.

SPQR by Mary Beard

Anything by Cambridge Classics professor Mary Beard is worth reading. Everyone loves Mary Beard, fast becoming one of Britain’s national treasure. I’m not just saying all this because she was one of my teachers at Cambridge. I think SPQR is a wonderful book. Ancient Roman history is so very dense and intricate that it can be difficult to teach and learn about. Mary Beard makes it accessible- and she goes through it all, from the early days right up until the present day.

Ancient Rome was an imposing city even by modern standards, a sprawling imperial metropolis of more than a million inhabitants, a "mixture of luxury and filth, liberty and exploitation, civic pride and murderous civil war" that served as the seat of power for an empire that spanned from Spain to Syria. Yet how did all this emerge from what was once an insignificant village in central Italy? Mary Beard provides a sweeping revisionist history to get to grips with this thematic question.

‘SPQR’ is just four letters, but interwoven in those four letters are thousands of years and pages of Roman history. Cicero used to talk about the ’concordia ordinum.’ He said there was a harmony between all the orders in Rome. It’s like a pyramid hierarchy structure. At the top you have the ′senatus′ or the Senate—the aristocrats, the rich men who make decisions. Underneath that you have the ’equites’ who we don’t talk about as much , but they have their own spheres of power. They’ve got a bit of money and are a lower level. And underneath that you’ve got the ’populus’ or the people. SPQR is the harmony between the senatus and the populus and how they work together. That’s where Rome comes from: it’s not just about the Senate. The Senate can’t work without the people and vice versa. So ‘SPQR’ is basically a four-letter summation of the Roman constitution. It’s what it should be, though often isn’t. One of the reasons why - and she writes about this very well - Rome falls apart is because that relationship of harmony and hierarchy does fall apart under Caesar and Pompey in the 1st century BC.

Imperium by Robert Harris

This is one of my favourite novels, even if it weren’t classical, because like all Harris’ books it’s written like a smart thriller. I’m a huge Robert Harris fan. A lot of Robert Harris’ books are quite similar: they have a protagonist and you see the story - all the machinations - through his eyes. In Imperium we see the life of Cicero through the eyes of his slave, Tiro. We know Tiro was a real person, who recorded everything Cicero wrote.

The late Republic is one of my favourite periods of any period of history ever. You get all the figures: Cicero, Caesar, Pompey, Crassus, Octavian, Antony and Cato. Robert Harris paints compelling portraits of these people so nicely that even with Crassus, say, who comes up every so often, you get a sense of who he is. There are actually two more books in the trilogy: Lustrum and Dictator. Once you get to Dictator, you know who Julius Caesar really is, you know why he’s doing it.

#ask #question #books #reading #naval #maritime #classics #literature #fiction #history #personal #war #military #antiquity

[theonceoverthinker]

Who’s ready for sighs, screams, adventure, and romance? Well, the reader of tonight’s Fair Game HC, of course!

Who doesn’t love a good old fashioned amusement park? They’re fun, exciting, entertaining, and full of possibilities!

So, what do Qrow and Clover get down to when they’re at one of them? That is what I aim to explore tonight!!!

Now, let’s do this!

-Qrow loves thrill rides, and I’m not just talking about your regular coasters like Space Mountain -- I’m talking about Remant’s equivalent of Kingda Ka and El Toro! The idea of riding something that breaks records for speed and loops and crazy angles lights a fire of excitement for Qrow’s inner machine fanboy. When planning out a day at any amusement park, he makes sure to set aside time to go on two or three coasters or thrill rides. Sure, he can fly in his bird form, but there’s just something about bolting across a track hundreds of feet in the air that just makes someone feel alive, and Qrow is here for that feeling. 

-Clover’s...less thrilled about them than his boyfriend is. He likes roller coasters, but he has a cut off point with them, and that point is just about the same point where Qrow’s eyes grow wide with excitement. Qrow will rag on him about it a bit, saying how they’ve experienced so much scarier things in their professions (”You know we’ve literally jumped out of planes before, right?”), to which Clover will argue how it’s different. That said, Clover will go past that point where his nerves shake him every so often if it’s just the two of them at an amusement park, or everyone else going on the ride already has a seat mate. However, most of the times, as soon as they’re off the coaster, Clover has to make a beeline for the nearest trashcan to vomit. Qrow rubs his back as this happens and has water bottles immediately on hand for when this happens. He also has all of the locations of close by bathrooms memorized because he knows Clover doesn’t want to mess up his clothes. And, as thanks, once he’s recovered from that, Qrow lets him pick out their rides for the rest of the day. 

-When it comes to rides, Clover likes smaller roller coasters (Think Splash or Space Mountain, the Incredicoaster, or Slinky Dog Dash), as well as some fun dark rides (Ex. Haunted Mansion), the pirate ship, and some of the spinning rides. Qrow likes them as well -- not as much as they big thrills, but they’re up there. On a less intense ride, Clover’s more likely to let his arms fly up in the air. Qrow’s quite the opposite. Somehow, going on a slower, but still fast fast ride makes him a bit more nervous of gravity’s powers (But, he also finds that to be part of the fun).

-Clover and Qrow always face off on the bumper cars. They’ve tried sharing a bumper car before, but while they pair up well together in many things, bumper cars are not one of them. They’re both simply too controlling, and besides, why would they ever decide not to compete against each other like this? So instead, they make it their mission to hit each other as much as they can. Things are actually pretty balanced between them. Clover has his good luck going for him while Qrow is far better at handling bumper cars themselves. Sometimes, on line, one or both of them will recruit others on line to act as backup, and if their loved ones are involved, it becomes one heck of a team sport!

-They both avoid slower rides for the most part, but they’ll go on them under the right conditions. If they’re tired of waiting on lines and just want to chill out on something that moves, they’ll hop on a monorail or a train ride for a few minutes while they get their energy back. They’ll also hop on the ferris wheel for a good view of the park if they’re stumped over what to do next (They’re not really the kind of couple who make a thing out of kissing on the ride, but to be overly corny, Clover will occasionally peck Qrow on the cheek).

So, here we are at the end of the post, and I bet you’re thinking that I left a few things out! After all, where are the HC’s about park food, games, stuffed toys, live shows, and character meetups -- you know, all of the other, smaller things that make amusement parks so fun?

Well, because I’ve gotta hook you guys into coming back to these every day somehow, I’m gonna save those for tomorrow!!!

Tagging @homokinetic @skybird13 @whipped4qrow @mooksie01 @luck-of-the-caw @xwildangel @solitude-of-stars @magneto-is-neato @o0nashipear0o @unfairgamey @doctorrwby @clover-and-co @megan-atthedisco @wash-my-brain @bisexualdisasterqrow @baelonthebrave @doubledexterity @rwby-things-i-guess @atlas-heartthrob @the-answer-was-bi-klance

Want to be tagged in future Fair Game HC’s? Of course, you do! So send me a reply, PM, or ask to be added, and I’ll grant your greatest wish! XD

#fair game #rwby #qrow branwen #clover ebi #lucky charms #luckbirds #luck birds #qrover #fair game hcs

[split-n-splice]

For the drive-in theater prompt from @drakgoprompts​. Writing one-shots makes me writhe but an attempt was made after much nudging from @gogofordrakgo​. It's a little bit TCYK-flavor (my main fic), but can be read as general established-relationship Drakgo, probably.

Also found FFn and Ao3! Warnings: none Word count: <1k

"Fly In”

“This is ridiculous,” Shego sighed as the destination came into view. In a big open lot filling up fast with cars, it was hard to miss what amounted to a repurposed billboard painted white.

“Ah-ah-ah. We flipped a coin,” reminded Drakken sternly from behind the controls of the hovercar. “I won fair and square.” From the corner of her eye, she didn’t miss his tongue poke out in her direction.

She rolled her eyes in exasperation and rested her temple against her fist, elbow propped on the rim of the hovercar. “But we have this movie. You know, in the living room, gathering dust with the rest of our VHS’s.”

“Yes, but we never get out,” argued the insistent man. Whining, more like.

“We ‘get out’ at least twice a month,” Shego reminded with the regrettable use of finger quotes and holding two fingers up as if it were evidence in her halfhearted case against his decision.

Drakken ground out something frustrated and his grip tightened on the controls. After Shego had won the coin toss three outings in a row – electing for a casino, a stowaway day on a cruise ship, and a childish game of laser tag – it was only fair she humor him in his turn to choose a destination or activity, an indulgence for just the two of them.

Nonetheless, Shego blew a raspberry as Drakken brought the hovercar in for a landing. “This is stupid,” she criticized for the umpteenth time.

“It’s a movie, Shego. Not water torture,” Drakken retorted, his patience wearing thin.

She didn’t look him in the eye, lest she see the trace of hurt there. She sat straighter with an apathetic sigh. “Whatever. Did you grab the bug spray?”

He grunted a confirmation and tossed her the can before leaping out of the car.

Insect repellent assaulting her senses wasn’t the ideal way to kick off their evening out, but she resigned to giving herself a quick spray, and the blue man too when he returned. He made an unappreciative noise and choked on it.

“Don’t be a baby,” Shego snipped. “You could be wearing your nice cologne, but hey, you’re the one who wanted to do something outside.”

“I am wearing my nice cologne,” Drakken defended, short of a whine again.

A wry little, “Huh,” was all she had to say about that. He glowered at her, but she smirked and snatched up a bucket of popcorn he’d brought back from the dashboard before he could make a grab for it himself.

He managed to swipe a handful of the hot buttery snack for himself before kicking the hovercar back into gear, elevating them several feet off the ground, well above the rest of the cars crowding the lot. He’d been working on silencing the engine for stealth purposes, but if the inevitable hum bothered anybody else, that was their problem. A quick tune of the radio, and he set his feet up on the dash and folded his arms behind his head to get comfortable for the show. He grinned ear to ear at Shego, proudly declaring with his mouth full, “Best seat in the house.”

“I dunno about that,” Shego muttered. “I’d rather be home watching it from the couch.”

His smile fell as he looked over to her, dumbfounded for a moment before his brow knit together. Given they’d seen the decade-old film before, Shego worried for a moment the whole movie would be spent bickering. But then he grunted and glared back at the big screen. “You don’t go to the movies just for the movie. You go for the experience,” he reminded.

Even if he was right, arguing was second-nature. “Yeah, and right now I’m experiencing some major—”

Drakken’s arm landed heavily around her shoulders then. She shut her trap and tried not to look his way, but she caved, stealing a peek at his lower lip pushed out. He was making an effort not to argue, straining just to pout at her. She sighed and supposed she should try as well, and quickly pecked his frowning lips before she could think twice. Fleeting as it was, it was enough to make him flash a grin, even if she had to wipe the bitter taste of the bug spray off on the inside of her own sweater.

“These things are hard to come by,” he said, less defensive and more… informative… as Shego relaxed against his side, his cable-knit sweater soft and warm and making him unfairly huggable, try as she might to resist it. “You ever been to a drive-in?”

“With my family,” she admitted. “When I was a kid.”

He hummed pensively after a minute, his ever-buzzing mind distracted from the movie in front of them, though that was to be expected. “You know, I think we might be pioneers,” he said optimistically.

She tried not to roll her eyes or sigh at his interruption. “Why’s that?”

“We must be the first to make this a fly-in movie.”

Shego leaned back to grimace incredulously at him. “You know they have movies on planes, right?” she said. Sure, catching a movie on a flight wasn’t the same, but she delighted in watching it crawl under his skin nonetheless.

He grunted. “You know what I mean.”

She shook her head and settled back against him. “Doc, has anyone ever told you how behind the times you are?”

Drakken reached for the popcorn in her lap. “Can’t beat the classics,” he said with a contented smile as his eyes finally focused on the big screen once and for all.

#Kim Possible #Drakgo #Drakken #Shego #Dr. Drakken #fanfic #prompt #oneshot

[shera-dnd]

I Think I Love You

About a day later than I was planing, but it is finally here

Here is my gift for @taramacgay for the @sherawintergiftexchange

Their prompt was "Glitra - shit I think I like you" and you nerds better be sure I had a lot of fun writing this

This is a bit of a long one so it will be all under de read more link. Hope you guys enjoy this

Maybe it was the fear of death that had Catra’s heart racing, maybe it was the adrenaline that made the world slow down around her, maybe it was a sudden fear of being separated from the one ally she had in this cursed ship that made her grip Glimmer’s hand like this.

Lasers flew around them as they raced towards Mara’s ship; On one end of this corridor was freedom, on the other death, yet all that ran through Catra’s mind was how beautiful Glimmer looked as the fires of the exploding ship illuminated her face.

A hole had been blown open at the end of that corridor. Catra was grateful she wasn’t here when Prime’s ship was still outside Etheria’s atmosphere as she did not feel like taking a stroll in the cold nothingness of space. Beyond that hole, Mara’s ship awaited and on its entry ramp was Adora, her hand extended to catch them both. Catra had never been this happy to see Adora in her life.

They leapt towards the ramp, landing safely in Adora’s arms. It was over, they finally escaped, they were free. Catra hardly had any time to celebrate when she noticed a green beam of light flying towards Glimmer’s back and before she could even process what was happening she jumped in the way, taking the blast straight to the chest and in a moment the world went dark.

~~~

“I’m fine” Catra insisted, trying to get up from her uncomfortably soft bed “I’ve had worse”

“No, you’re not fine” Glimmer argued back, gently pushing Catra back down. It wasn’t nearly enough force to actually stop Catra, but she couldn’t find it in herself to push back against Glimmer, so she simply laid back down again. “Just rest, Catra”

“Whatever, Sparkles” Catra yielded, not wanting to upset the princess so soon after their great escape. “Shouldn’t you be out there with your friends, celebrating your return or whatever?”

“I’m spending time with a friend right now, aren’t I?” Glimmer answered, with a smile that made Catra’s heart race. What was Catra’s problem?

Ever since yesterday she had been feeling all weird around Glimmer. No, now that she thought about it she felt like that for a while, but only recently did it start getting intrusive like this. Now she couldn’t even touch Glimmer without getting distracted by how warm and soft she was and how much she wanted Glimmer to just hold her and- oh, Glimmer asked something she didn’t quite catch.

“What?” Catra asked, returning to reality.

“I asked if you were okay” Glimmer repeated “You didn’t say anything back and I got worried”

“I told you I’m fine,” Catra answered, perhaps a little more aggressively than she would have liked. “I just need some rest”

“Alright” Glimmer agreed, holding Catra’s hand for a moment before letting go - oh Catra did not want her to let go, ever - “I’ll let you get your rest then” Catra wished she didn’t feel this bad watching Glimmer go.

~~~

“This is ridiculous!” Catra protested, as Glimmer and Bow dragged her through the castle.

“Come on, Catra,” Bow insisted “don’t you wanna befriend all the other princesses?”

“Not really” She shrugged “I’m fine with being barely tolerated. I’m used to it by now”

“That may be how it worked in the Horde,” Glimmer argued “but in Bright Moon we all try to be friends”

“Sounds like too much effort” Catra joked “Can I go back to trying to kill you guys?” Glimmer shot her an annoyed glare. “Fine, I’ll do what you want” Catra conceded. It looked like ‘annoyed glares’ also had to be added to the ever growing list of things Glimmer did that got a rise out of Catra.

Catra was dragged into their war room and seated next to Adora. She gave Catra a tired look that seemed to say ‘they got you too?’ All the other princesses on the other hand seemed a lot more interested in what was about to happen. Catra was still unsure what they all gathered here for, but whatever that ‘bonding experience’ was she was pretty sure she was gonna hate it.

And she absolutely did, at first. All the princesses discussing their absolutely over the top and nonsensical ‘plans’ for defeating Horde Prime was extremely frustrating, but about half way through it all clicked. This was about the fantasy, about the perfect world where they could just magic Prime away, where they could all be great heroes in their own way.

Besides all that it was pretty fun to watch all the princesses different takes on her character. Some still saw her as some over the top villain begrudgingly helping them, some saw her as the hero she had the potential to be...and then there was Glimmer. Dresses were never Catra’s thing, but she would definitely consider wearing one if it got a reaction like that out of sparkles.

“Looks like it’s your turn, Catra” Adora said, handing Catra the weird paper screen thing they had been using.

“No no, I’m good just watching” Catra countered, getting ready to leave. She was not gonna take part in this

“Please” Adora asked, making puppy dog eyes.

“That is not gonna work on me, Adora” Catra declared

“Please!” Joined Glimmer and Bow

Catra sighed, grabbed that stupid screen and started narrating.

.

Tall dark buildings stretched in the horizon until they pierced the stormy clouds above, the only light that illuminated the world was the lightning above and the neon from the city bellow. Residing atop the tallest of these buildings was the tyrant that turned the world into this bleak dystopia, Horde Prime.

Sirens blared throughout the top floor of Prime’s spire, red warning lights illuminating every room and corridor as a battalion of clones mobilized, and at the heart of this chaos stood Catra, weaving and slashing through Prime’s defenses.

“Catra, retreat and wait for reinforcements” Bow called on her communicator “You can’t face Prime on your own”

“Please” Catra laughed as her augmented body effortlessly dodged around a hail of bullets “Prime should be the one running now”

“Catra, please-” He tried again

“Tell our friends to pick up the pace” She said, muting Bow “They wouldn’t want to miss out on the fun”

As soon as Catra opened the door to Prime’s office she was sent flying back into the corridor by a massive explosion. Prime had been waiting for her. She ran back towards him, leaping around to avoid the spray gunfire he unleashed upon her. She landed feet first on his chest and pushed him back into the office.

The battle that followed was long and bloody. Catra was fierce, fast, cunning, but Prime was stronger than she could’ve prepared for. Blow after blow he stayed standing and blow after blow Catra struggled to get back up. This was not a fight she could win alone and she had been a fool to believe so.

Prime approached her now that she couldn’t get up anymore, ready to get rid of her for good, but before he could do anything, a blast of colorful light sent him flying against the back wall. Reinforcements had arrived. Glimmer was here.

The princess confidently walked into the room and she was light and warmth and color, she was comfort and kindness and care, but she was fury, she was power and terror. She was beautiful and she was invincible.

.

“Is that how you see me?” Glimmer asked, blushing furiously

“What?” Shit, did Catra say all that outloud? She had to come up with something quick “No, I just thought you needed a little power trip after all that happened. Actually this whole game is just silly, let’s do something else” She hastily explained herself, getting up and dashing out of the room before anyone could stop her.

~~~

“Wildcat, can we talk?” Scorpia called, knocking on Catra’s door

“What do you want, Scorpia?” She asked, opening the door just a little

“It’s just that you’ve been such good friends with the queen lately and then you suddenly start avoiding her and acting weird around her and I just wanted to be sure you were doing okay” Scorpia explained. “Also I baked cookies” She continued, offering a plate of scorpion and cat shaped cookies. “Perfuma taught me!”

“I am not acting weird and I am not avoiding her. I am fine” Catra insisted, grabbing one of the cookies. She absolutely was avoiding Glimmer, but Scorpia didn’t have to know that. Catra took a bite of one of her cat shaped cookies. It was probably the best thing she had since they escaped Prime’s ship “You can stay here, but only until I’m done with the cookies.” Scorpia smiled at her, proud that Catra liked her cookies so much, and made her way into the room.

Catra’s room was modest, or at least as modest as a room in Bright Moon could ever be. She didn’t exactly have much in the way of decoration. In fact she even asked Glimmer to remove some excess, such as the overly soft bed that had now been replaced by a much more solid bunk. The waterfall had been removed as Catra complained that the constant sound was bound to drive her mad. What was left was a lot of open space for her to train and very few places for her and Scorpia to sit. Her bunk would have to do.

“So why were you avoiding the queen again?” Scorpia asked, completely ignoring Catra’s previous comment.

“I told you I’m not avoiding her” Catra repeated, grabbing another cookie.

“You know you can trust me, Catra” Scorpia insisted. “Just talk to me so I can help you through this” Catra groaned in response, flopping back onto the bed.Scorpia smiled at her, accepting this a sign of agreement.

“I’ve just been feeling weird around her, okay?” Catra admitted, grabbing the next cookie. “I kinda just rolled with it when we were stuck together. I mean, we only had each other back then and I couldn’t let something like that get in the way, but ever since we escaped I’ve just been feeling…” Catra trailed off, unsure of how to explain it.

“Anxious? Sweaty? Like your heart is gonna jump out of your throat? Like every second you spend away from her it’s a second you’ve wasted?” Scorpia eagerly offered, earning a suspicious look from Catra.

“How do you know?” Catra asked, wondering if the black garnet somehow made Scorpia a telepath.

“Aww, Catra, you’re in love!” Scorpia beamed

“Seriously? Me? In love with princess sparkles?” Catra couldn’t help but laugh

“I’m serious!” Scorpia defended “You should be more honest with yourself. Let yourself feel that stuff!”

“Alright, sorry, I didn’t mean to laugh at you,” Catra apologized “but I’m not in love with Glimmer. I promise” She assured her. “Now go spend some time with flower princess, I’m sure she already misses you”

She got Scorpia out of the room before she could continue that uncomfortable line of questioning,. letting out a sigh of relief as soon as her door closed. Love? Scorpia must be out of her mind if she seriously believed Catra was in love with Glimmer.

Catra returned to her bed just to find that she forgot the plate of cookies there and it still had a cookie left. It was one of the cat shaped ones and it was covered in pink and purple sprinkles. That was kinda cute, she thought to herself, did this little cat have a little sparkly princess just like her?

Just like her?

“Shit!”

~~~

The war would not wait for her silly little drama. Prime still lived and while he did Etheria was in danger. Fighting him and protecting the people of their world was priority one, confessing her crush to Glimmer could wait. Catra was definitely not looking forward to that conversation.

The battlefield suited Catra better than the halls of Bright Moon. It was chaotic, it was dangerous, and it was just like her. It was strange that in this mess, where a single misstep could cost her her life, she had more peace of mind than while resting next to the girl she apparently loved. She could think about things from a removed perspective.

She was considering the best moment to bring this up to Glimmer, as she absent mindedly tossed a clone against another with her new whip. It was a gift from Glimmer, a replacement for the one she destroyed. It was obviously just a way to make her more effective in combat again, but part of her dared hope it was a sign of friendship or maybe even- No! A removed perspective, Catra, she thought to herself. You can’t let this distract you.

She shook her head, trying to get herself to focus again. But before she could process what was happening, a bright pink light surrounded her and next thing she knew she landed ass first on the ground. Glimmer landed on top of her, and the sickening smell of charred flesh assaulted her nostrils.

“I guess we’re even now” Glimmer joked through the pain, her voice strained. Catra was in shock, unsure of what to do.

“Glimmer, please stay with me” Catra pleaded, her voice cracking

“Heh” Glimmer chuckled, not completely there anymore “I like how my name sounds when you say it...”

“Glimmer, you idiot” Catra laughed, but tears filled her eyes. She didn’t even see the enemy forces approaching until something else blew them all up.

“I’ll take her to safety” Bow called, taking Glimmer away from her “Cover our way out!”

That she could do. She wiped away her tears, turned to face the approaching clones, and this time all she saw was red.

~~~

“Funny being on the other side of this” Glimmer joked, laying on her bed with Catra by her side.

“Funny? You nearly killed me” Catra complained, earning a giggle from Glimmer

“Last I checked I saved you” She argued, her smile constant even through the pain in her back “What even got you distracted like that?”

“It was nothing,” Catra deflected, looking away “it won’t happen again” It was her fault, if Catra hadn’t been so distracted none of this would happen. If Catra hadn’t opened the portal, if Catra fled with Adora, if Catra just- Glimmer hugged her, it felt warm and soft and Cata wished she could stay like that forever.

“It’s not your fault” Glimmer assured her “You just have a lot on your mind”

Glimmer was wrong, Catra only had one thing on her mind and it was her.

“Hey, I should be the one comforting you right now!” Catra argued, trying to sound confident. She failed.

“This is not my first time almost dying” Glimmer admitted, breaking the hug to look into Catra’s eyes “And I would do it again to save the people I… care for”

“When I pull that kind of shit it’s usually to make things worse for people” Catra confessed. Memories of the portal still haunted her nightmares.

“You’re better than that now” Glimmer reassured Catra, holding her hand “You saved me twice now”

“And I tried to kill you how many times before?” Catra argued. She did not deserve all this kindness.

“It doesn’t matter” Glimmer insisted “That is all in the past”

“Why are you so forgiving?” Catra asked weakly “After all I’ve done...”

“Because I messed it up too” Glimmer admitted “And if I can’t forgive you how can I hope for anyone to forgive me” Suddenly these last few weeks made so much sense to Catra. In a strange way they were each other’s roads to redemption, their path to happiness. Was this why she fell in love with Glimmer?

“Glimmer,” Catra called and the princess perked up, looking up at Catra’s eyes again. Was she looking at her lips before? That thought filled her with some more confidence for what she was about to do “Thank you for forgiving me” No, that was not what she wanted to say.

“Thank you for helping me forgive myself” Glimmer answered, showing a weaker side Catra hadn’t seen since their time in that cell. Glimmer leaned forward to hug her again, but Catra stopped her. She wanted to look her in the eyes when she said this.

“Glimmer, the reason why I’ve been so distracted lately and why I’ve been avoiding you,” Catra stopped to take a deep breath, she could do this “is because I’ve been having...feelings for you,” Catra mentally berated herself, how was she so bad at this? “and I’ve been afraid of those feelings. I’ve been afraid that you’d reject me and that rejection was all I deserved, but you’ve been so good to me and I just-”

“Catra.” Glimmer interrupted. That was it. Glimmer was gonna put an end to Catra’s bullshit, but at least she would have some closure. It was all she could ask for “May I kiss you?” The question caught Catra by surprise.

“What?” She asked, completely confused

“May I kiss you?” Glimmer repeated and only then Catra understood what just happened.

“Yes!” Catra wanted to play it cool, but her stupid heart no longer had any patience for that.

Glimmer leaned close again, their lips finally meeting and for the first time in months Catra finally relaxed, her fears and regrets melting away as she kissed Glimmer back and if she could do this for the rest of her life she would happily do so. When they finally broke apart Glimmer giggled.

“What?” Catra asked, with the brightest smile she had in ages.

“It’s nothing, I just,” She stopped, trying to calm down her laughter “I think I love you”

Catra kissed her again.

“I think I love you too”

#glitra #fic #shera #spop #glimmer #catra #gift exchange #she ra gift exchange